Warning: This is definitely an M rated chapter. In the next two to three chapters there are twisted, consensual sexual scenes, desecration of graves, good old fashioned violence, enough gothic-esque moody atmospherics to make a Prozac spell much needed, and most of the characters' actions would probably result in lifelong bans from certain counties. At the very least they'd get court mandated therapy.
Keep in mind horcruxes are at work – those things are not sunshine and rainbows, and I have 0 intention to write them as such. Life isn't smooth sailing and human behavior doesn't fit into nice, neat packages, especially if under the influence of something worse than drugs, alcohol, and good ole teenage hormones. If that's not your cup of tea, turn back now. You can't say I haven't warned you.
Happy (well sort of) reading!
ECOTS
"Woe to the deer who is courted by the charismatic wolf, or to the fly who is not immune to the sweet, sultry songs of the spider."
~ Nenia Campbell
Chapter 71 ~ Not a Fairy Tale
ECOTS
January 2nd, 1997 ~ Late Afternoon
It wasn't a fairy tale fucking.
His hands were everywhere.
It occurred to Harry-fucking-Potter that he needed to stop. Somewhere, deep in the back of his lizard brain a smarter part of Harry screamed at himself to stop doing this before he couldn't. This wasn't right. This wasn't some back-alley Knockturn slag he'd overheard Black and Snape swap war stories about screwing in every dirty position they could think of; this was Kaylens. This was his Kally, his non-witch. He was fucking in love with her and she deserved better
Dobby's comment from so long ago struck him, because the elf had been right: Kaylens was his mate, in every way that mattered, and Harry'd sworn a thousand times over he'd do anything, anything for her.
When he was inside of her again he wanted it to mean something. If he claimed her virginity, again, he sure as hell wanted her to remember it. He didn't want to lose this. He didn't want to risk it. And yet…
The way Kaylens had looked at him, shattered and broken, thinking he hadn't wanted her…
His heart had nearly stopped.
Harry, however, hadn't.
They fell into the mausoleum together.
The stale scent of dust and cobwebs attacked his nose, and his breaths came in hard rasps. They stumbled backwards, down a step, tripping and colliding against shelving. Harry's knee smashed into something and pain plumed up. It hurt, but it was a good pain, and Kaylens' back took the brunt of the impact, her spine smashing into stone shelving, Harry's weight falling on top of her. He nearly crushed her. It was all he could do to hang on to her.
Decades old dust billowed up into the air, choking them both, yet Kaylens only discernable sign of distress was a sneeze.
The jerk of her head, of their mouths so tightly pressed together, resulted in her teeth meeting his lip. Enamel proved harder than skin, cutting into him like a knife, a dagger of pain shooting across his lip. He tasted blood against his tongue, Kally making an instant, alarmed sound, attempting to tug back-
Like hell.
Harry snared her tighter and shoved her with bruising force up and onto one of the crypt shelves, cradling her ass, her back knocking against a coffin. She let out a cry of pain, but Kally didn't stop. She clawed at his jacket, tugging, slipping it from his shoulders. The way her fingertips grazed his upper arms, his shoulder blades as she struggled, scratching his skin with her nails, was enough to send part of him that hadn't been touched in months straining against his jeans.
It was a wonder he didn't lose control then and there.
Kally gave an upset sound, tugging at the worn, brown leather jacket as if it'd personally run over her pet kitten.
Harry leaned forward, mouth shoved desperately to his witch's, releasing his hold only long enough to shrug out of the offending garment for her.
It dropped to the dirt-covered ground, crunching against the desiccated exoskeletons of dozens of dead insects, the things having ignorantly crawled in and died throughout the decades.
Then he seized her waist, crushing her hips, pressing Kalliandra to him with a groan. His hand slid down the length of her thigh to her knee, Harry's fingers clutching against her tight jeans, giving them a pointed tug. Kaylens got the hint, wrapping her legs around his hips, his length pressing intimately against her, only the fabric of their winter clothes to separate them. He wanted this. He wanted her. He wanted inside her in so many damn ways he couldn't even express it. He couldn't think. His head buzzed in a deoxygenated feel of her so, so close to him after so long…
He'd nearly lost her.
Harry had watched her familiar form laying there on that bed so still, her breaths slowing, at time ceasing, and he'd been helpless for weeks. He'd stood by and watched as Pomfrey, Regulus, had resuscitated her uncountable times, forcing magic, air into her lungs, breathing for her so her weakly pounding heart wouldn't stop, wouldn't cease, so he wouldn't lose her.
Every time he'd been afraid that this was it. That they wouldn't be able to bring her back.
Familiar panic rose up, even now, even as her neck craned back, her head thudding back against a wooden coffin so she could gasp for breath after breath, and suddenly Harry wanted, needed to feel her breathing against him.
He needed to touch, feel, reassure himself that she was alive, here, his.
Harry attacked her neck with the veracity of a celibate convict, his mouth on her skin, sucking, licking, feeling her pulse wildly pulsating beneath his tongue. Her tendons stood out as she gasped, hyperventilating.
He needed that. He needed this. Her taste, her scent hadn't changed. The slight sheen of sweat on her neck tasted like something XXX rated, it like drinking an entire vat of amortentia, consequences be damned.
Harry should stop. He should. He didn't know if he could.
Kally's silken hair streamed like waves of finely spun gold around his face as he worked his way up her throat, to her jaw, groaning against her skin.
Kally writhed against him, her hips bucking against his, Harry tugging back with a gasp, breathing hard as she looked into his eyes and repeated the motion. Reverently he lifted his hand to trace her lips-
Kaylens bit at his hand and it hurt. He hissed, but she ignored him, tugging his glove off between her teeth. Harry shot her a stunned look, the blind need, passion tempered as a startled chuckle escaped. "You'd tell me," he gasped hoarsely, "if you'd been bitten by any night stalkers, right?" She was awfully bitey.
Her eyes sparkled in that murky lighting, an impish smile teasing her full, swollen lips, her mouth promising so many kinds of sin it was a wonder they didn't burst into flames then and there.
Sober for but an instant Harry moved, slowly, slowly dragging his hands down her arms, reaching her gloves this time. He trailed his fingers over first her palms, then her fingers, before slowly pulling at the gloves covering them.
He flung them back, over his shoulder without concern for where they landed.
Not once did he break eye contact, Kally watching his movements with that same knowing, teasing smile that made him want to wipe it from her mouth only to hear her whimpering his name as she writhed beneath him.
Harry was spellbound.
Then he moved.
Dust flew.
Kalliandra sneezed again, so violently that Harry's hand jerked behind her head to prevent it from smacking against the unforgiving stone of the crypt. She nearly fell off the shelf, clinging to him, leaving Harry's heart pounding as he shoved his bleeding mouth to hers, laughing lowly. "Only you," words vibrating and deep, "could get injured from a sneeze."
Kally tried to growl, only to once more sneeze against his lips, Harry pausing his attempts to deprive her of breath for only a moment. Her nose had scrunched, crinkling against his, her swollen lips parted as she desperately tried to catch her breath and not sneeze again.
Somehow she still managed to make an incredibly annoyed sound.
Harry's lidded gaze cracked, studying her through the thin shafts of light pouring in from the mausoleum's incredibly small, high-set windows. Grime from decades of disuse covered the thick glass, drowning out the sunlight. It poured in with a sickly yellow-tinge, but as it caressed her skin it somehow added, rather than detracted.
Everything about her was perfect.
And somehow she'd thought he hadn't wanted her.
He wanted her like he wanted air; it wasn't a want. It was a need so deep, so profound that it was a part of him. Even angered, even pissed, even in the midst of a wand fight for his life or in the middle of his own cardiac arrest, even in the middle of an exam or on the quietest of nights the only fucking constant he could count on was her.
Harry Potter wanted her the same way a sane man wanted oxygen: he'd die without it.
Harry made a sound even he didn't recognize, uncaring about anything else but the non-witch in front of him. Kally was still trying not to sneeze, her eyes determinedly closed as if she could suppress the dust infiltrating its way up her nose by sheer willpower alone.
She couldn't. She shouldn't even try.
Amidst the frenzy, amidst the hard need rising through his core, Harry screamed at himself to slow the fuck down. Kaylens, this Kaylens that was still his Kaylens - even if they hadn't been through hell and death and back again yet - deserved everything she'd had the first sodding time and then some.
Dementors had botched that up. There'd be no dementors here. Not sealed as they were in this dusty crypt. Not so far from the war, the wizarding world, Dumbledore's meddling and worst of all the cock-block known as Black.
Harry's hand slowly slid to the side of her face, his callused fingertips tracing lightly against her skin. First her cheekbone, then the angle of her jaw, rising to her parted lips, her nose…
Kaylens suddenly looked like she might again sneeze, Harry chuckling. "Stop breathing," he commanded. Her glorious golden eyes flew open, fixing on him in confusion, but Harry calmly continued tracing the contours of her face with a slow smile. "Hermione," he explained, "tells Ron and I all the time… you can't sneeze if you don't breathe. Try it. Give it a minute."
Kally opened her mouth to speak, only to sneeze again, ducking her head so quickly that she nearly knocked him in the jaw. He jerked back quick enough, smirking as she sneezed once, twice…
Her breaths were coming short and fast, and Harry claimed her chin, forcing it up. The green and brown flecks in her eyes practically sparked, Harry smirking and pressing his mouth directly to hers to speak. "Kaylens does well in class but doesn't follow directions…" he said quietly. "How about I help you with this?" With that…
Harry claimed her lips slowly, tenderly, it a stark contrast to the forcefulness of before. Seizing first her upper, then her lower lip, Harry relished her taste. It was intoxicating, Harry tasting the coppery flavor of his own blood as Kally reciprocated. His tongue licked at her mouth, Kally licking back at his.
Deep in the back of his mind something hissed.
It wasn't until he felt her attempting to reclaim breath, oxygen that he'd rightfully deprived, that he shoved her back hard, his mouth sealing so tight to hers that he may as well have been giving her mouth-to-mouth.
He wasn't.
He was suffocating her, intentionally.
His nose smashed against hers, pinning her nostrils shut, a protesting whimper escaping her, only Harry didn't stop. Lack of air carried a sudden urgency, Kaylens' fingers digging into his shoulders with a sudden panic that inexplicably made him want to do her more.
Unbeknownst to him his scar sizzled, a voice in the back of his mind encouraging him.
Harry could do anything he wanted to her. He could take her right then, right now, and there'd be nothing she could do about it. He could take her life. His lungs were larger, Harry able to hold his breath longer. He could force her into unconsciousness, reducing the girl in his arms to nothing more than a lifeless, limp, beautiful state. She'd be dependent on him. He would be the only one to determine if she lived or died, if she could again draw breath, because he would have to give it to her.
The hissing voice urged him on, telling him that he could kill her, then bring her back. Then do it again. As many times as he wanted. It was the ultimate control. The ultimate aphrodisiac. She would owe him everything.
His fist tangled in her glorious hair and Harry held her there as he suffocated her in a bruising kiss. And despite it all, despite the fact that she couldn't breathe, despite the way her fingers clawed unconsciously at his shoulders, Kalliandra was still kissing him back.
Despite it she trusted him.
Again she tried to breathe against him, the unrelenting pressure of his mouth against hers not letting up.
Harry Potter deprived her of breath and he liked it.
Harry pinned her with his body, hips grinding against hers in an out of control motion as she began to writhe like a strangled animal in need of air. It was desperate. It was distressed. It turned him on. The way she moved, trying to gasp yet unable to.
She needed air.
Harry didn't give it to her. Not yet. He'd once wondered how long she could go without oxygen, without becoming brain damaged. She'd experienced it enough, he'd revived her himself once. She'd lain there in a pool of water, lips slowly graying, growing cyanotic from the water in her lungs.
Though this time, unlike last, he was going to see how long he could leave her. He'd let her slip away, then bring her back.
Kally was making sounds, at first urgent.
Now they grew softer.
At some point she'd started to hit him, trying to move him.
She failed.
She still hadn't stopped the movement of her mouth on his.
Never once did it occur to him why he was doing this, why she continued to touch him, kiss him even as he deprived her of air.
It wasn't until he felt her fingers growing slack upon his shoulder, losing strength, losing her fight that something sane, rational broke through. Still Harry didn't let up. He didn't let up a second too long, Kally's fingers slipping from his shoulder-
Fear daggered through him.
Harry yanked his mouth back, chest heaving as he gasped for breath, finding Kally's eyes closed, her arm hanging limp, lips parted in an almost drugged state.
He had his mouth to hers, pressing air into her lungs to stimulate her. She wasn't unconscious, not fully, not yet. Yet the lack of air, the deprivation, her body had stopped trying to fully breathe.
Air hissed from him into her, a racking cough choking her.
Harry grabbed brutally at the back of her head and let her, pressing his brow to hers. Kally gasped against him. First once, then twice. His witch leaned bonelessly against him, Harry gathering her to him with one arm in mild relief. Deep in him something continued to urge him, to tell him he could do it again. Push her to the brink, then pull her back, then do it again until she was dead. Eventually she'd lay there, allowing him anything, too weak to fight, only there to serve and give into his whims.
He didn't recognize, realize this voice was even there.
His other hand dropped from her hair, massaging its way down her sides as she panted.
She panted at first loudly, her breaths coming quieter and quieter as the blind, animalistic need for air calmed within her. Harry didn't mind. His large hands reached the bottom of Ariana's coat, the wizard methodically undoing the buttons of it, the light gray material falling open, exposing her chest as it rose, fell, rose, fell…
He grabbed her breast through it, rubbing through the thick jumper and bra and hearing her breath needingly hiss. He couldn't control himself. Harry didn't know what the hell he was doing, words a muttered mess against her cheek. "Too much?"
Slowly Kalliandra began to breathe normally again.
Harry nuzzled her nose with his lovingly, Kally hissing quietly, words shockingly breathy. "Harry…what the hell?" She weakly lifted a hand, her nails digging against his shirt and dragging down it in a weak attempt to claw his chest.
Harry chuckled deeply as he released her breasts, his hands sliding her coat from her shoulders, down her arms. "Notice," he drawled, "how you're not sneezing."
She blinked at him like a startled deer, like she was just understanding why he thought he'd done it. "Hiccups." It sounded like it was hard for her to talk. "You hold your breath for hiccups." She paused, breathlessly managing, "Idiot."
Harry's lips twitched. "Admit it," he muttered, "you kind of liked it."
She didn't answer.
Harry's hands shoved her coat the rest of the way down, Kaylens obediently shaking it from her wrists so that it fell onto the dust-covered shelf she sat on. Neither cared that her thin form was sharing the ledge with a coffin, the body of a dead person within. Neither noticed. Neither cared that he'd just tried to kill her. Neither cared how submissive she was being. It was like they were in a trance of want, need, lust, and Harry couldn't get enough.
He never wanted to have enough.
Kaylens' hooded eyes, still exhausted with exertion, were so damn sexy he could have spent himself just looking at her.
"What?" he questioned, goading her. "Not into it?"
Her eyes narrowed, lips parted as if about to argue, her oxygen and fight slowly coming back. "I still think," she managed, "it's for hiccups." Her evasiveness and exasperation were answer enough.
"Agree," he droned immediately, "to disagree."
"Like hell…" she countered breathlessly. "Something to do with," her breath caught, his fingers, knuckles slipping just beneath her shirt, brushing carefully against her warm skin, "stilling the diaphragm…hiccupping...it's…"
"Sneezing," he refuted, just to argue with her, smirking.
Kaylens hissed a breath.
Rubbing his nose against hers once more, Kally's argument was lost on her lips. He could practically feel how much she wanted to please him, to allow him this. Harry watched the fight drain out of her as he slid his hand fully beneath her jumper, going slow, his fingers trailing up her ivory skin, wanting her to feel his every stroke, every caress, every sensation he could possibly give her.
"Hermione," she managed dazedly, "we'll ask Hermione…"
Hand just beneath her breast, he winced. "No offense…but don't exactly want to think about Hermione right now."
Kally nodded in wordless agreement, Harry feeling her racing heartbeat through her ribcage. Hands lingering beneath her shirt, he was so close to her bra, his knuckles scraping the bottom of it, the wizard considering claiming her breasts there and then. All it would take was him to shove his hands beneath the fabric, only…
He didn't.
This slow, torturous seduction was better.
Kaylens was quivering, Harry's hands dropping down, unable to control them, tracing an idle circle around her navel that sent her shivering. Harry's hands moved over her skin, her shirt bunching beneath as he petted her like she had been specifically put on this planet to provide him with knowledge of the human form.
Kally's breath sucked in, Harry relishing his ability to cause that, her next words hissed as if it were with all the resolve she could muster.
"Damn't Potter," she murmured, "you could have suffocated me."
Harry tilted his head against her, feeling cavalier. "That was," he disclosed, "the idea." Feeling her protest, he promised into the dark space, "Don't worry, got you breathing again." His hands once more found her waist, thumbs rubbing circles against her hips, slowly sliding down. "Had lots…of…practice."
And he had. He knew how to make her breathe, just as intimately as he knew how to make her quiver, buck, moan.
With each syllable his hands had slid lower, his eyes holding hers with brazen question. The witch he was in love with held his gaze with a fiery sort of annoyance, but she made no move to stop him. His hands slid past her hips, to her inner thighs, moving up…
The Seeker found her intimate spot through her jeans, Harry suddenly grabbing there, rubbing.
The breath she hissed was for the record books. Kally fell back against the coffin. Harry followed her, leaning over her until her breasts rubbed against his chest, but his hand did not stop. "Kal…" he muttered druggedly, once more finding her neck, teeth grazing the delicate skin above her carotid. "Merlin…Kaylens…I've wanted this for so fucking long."
Kally was making sounds he scarcely recognized, her hips shifting, writhing as he rubbed in slow, meaningful circles. The friction he was creating for her only just starting.
Kally's hands slid down his torso, tracing every line of his chest, stomach, waist, roaming lower until they found him in kind. Feather light fingers brushed against him, stilling as if afraid, the slight fumble reminding him how very unexperienced this version of Kalliandra was, but after several seconds…
Through his jeans Kally found him, seizing his length through the coarse fabric, Harry hissing and practically bucking as she began to rub.
Standing there, inside a shadowy mausoleum, Harry reveled in every second of this. The warmth of her bared form against the frigid air, the increasing certainty in the way she touched him….
Harry's own hand slid slower on her, between her thighs, an animalistic need driving him. His fingers curled in through her clothing, as if seeking entry were it not for her jeans in the way, his words a guttural grind against the side of her face. "So fucking long." Months. It'd been months. Harry hadn't known how damn badly he'd needed this, wanted her, been dying without.
To his utter shock she uttered two words he'd never expected to hear, at least not when it came to waiting for sex.
She rolled her hips into his hand, Harry groaning as his fingers massaged faster, Kally's words a breathless gasp against his chin. "Me too."
Harry lifted his chin up, allowing her access, chuckling raspily. "Impatient are we?"
She let out a little hiss. "Yes."
His heart twisted.
Had he known she'd been that impatient before the time traveling crap he'd have thrown her down and taken her in freaking March.
He could have laughed at the absurdity had her hand not been where it'd been, had her warm lips not been attacking his throat, had he not had her bent at this awkward angle, her spine curved partially over the mausoleum shelf and partially over a decaying coffin.
Harry didn't care. He only wanted this to continue.
He curled his fingers through her jeans and tried to shove them in.
Kally let out a loud cry that had him smirk. His free hand twisted in her shirt, dragging it clumsily, awkwardly over her head. Not once did he stop touching, rubbing, pressing up and into her. The jumper was tangled in her hair, Kally making a protesting sound, her hands abandoning him for but a second to free her arms, slipping out of it. Harry made a disgruntled sound at the loss of contact, but he didn't stop touching her, the need to feel her wrapped around him so powerful it was almost painful.
Kally's shirt fell from her hand.
Even those few seconds of Kalliandra's touch he wanted back, his girlfriend reading his mind and reclaiming his length, pressing up and down along it.
Her shirt slid behind the coffin, falling with a soft thump into 1940's dust.
Her slim figure lay bared before him. "Kally…" Just her name, said worshipfully. His dark gaze traversed down her athletic form, taking all of her in. Unlike Hermione, who was beautiful, there was nothing soft about Kaylens. She was tight, taut, a warrior, a fucking fantasy. Unlike Ginny, who was jaw dropping in a typical way, Kaylens was unique. Unlike Cho, who wanted to be courted, Kaylens had pressed to him in a wet t-shirt, snogging the life from him while they'd still been spewing words of hate. She wasn't prim or proper. She had fire.
She had more than fire.
She was fucking electric. Literally.
Kalliandra lay sprawled out before him, tilted awkwardly back on the shelves at an angle that could not possibly be comfortable, her chest shockingly prominent as he shoved his fingers up into her through her jeans as much as he could.
Her jeans slid low on her hips, her toned stomach and navel practically begging him to trace every centimeter with his lips, tongue. Her bra clung to her breasts, pushing them up, her full, round mounds moving rhythmically as he pressed her harder and harder against the shelving with the need to be close.
At some point he'd begun moving, rutting up against her. Dust flaked down. The backs of her jeans scratched against the concrete, Harry unable to stop.
He wasn't fucking her. Not yet. But he was so, so fucking close. If someone showed up and vanished their undergarments he'd already be in her.
Kaylens in a bra and jeans ought to be a sin.
Kalliandra tilted her head back and let out a plaintive plea. "Harry please…"
In an impulse his hand was beneath her bra, palming her breast. He rubbed concentric circles, massaging, feeling her nipple growing taut beneath his callused hand. Broomsticks and Quidditch were good for creating that kind of friction – calluses against smooth, unfettered skin - and it was the last coherent thought he had before Kaylens was dragging his own shirt up and off him.
Harry didn't know how he got out of it, just like he didn't remember pulling her up to him. He didn't remember her warm, familiar form smacking solidly against his chest. He didn't remember lifting her from the ground, her legs wrapped around his waist. He didn't know how Kaylens' fingertips began to trace the scar upon his right shoulder – courtesy of Remus' claws – sending his body into mild convulsions.
He just knew that he nearly dropped her.
The way she kissed him, his own mouth moving wildly against hers…
Passionate was a cursed word he'd heard Lavendar and Parvarti giggle about as they poured over their pathetic romance books in the common room. It was annoying, but for the first time he actually grasped the meaning of the word.
Only those books, compared to this, were fucking laughable.
He'd make sure to tell them that the next time he saw them.
Amidst this Kally's lips paused, breaking away by mere centimeters, her long lashes shielding her eyes as she peered nervously up. "Harry, where are we…" Question unfinished, her eyes flickered around the cramped space, the floor the largest area, yet covered in his jacket and filth and-
Harry swore and with a contemptuous flick of his hand every single exoskeleton and scrap of dust littering the floor went up in flame, sizzling against the stone. It cracked loudly, the pop causing Kaylens to actually squeak, Harry only just managing to snare her to him before she did something asininely her, like crack her head on an old coffin.
It took him a second to realize that the sleeve of his jacket, which had been tossed to the floor, had caught fire. Harry casually stomped it out as if this kind of thing happened every day, not once loosening his hold on Kaylens.
Around them the floor was suddenly pristine, clear of detritus. Only soft, black ash remained, a smoky scent filling the air, and Harry met his girlfriend's startled gaze with a smug one. "That sterile enough for you?"
Kally's breaths were quick, eyes startled as she looked around. "Potter," she practically whispered, "but I thought you couldn't-"
"Fawkes," his voice was a guttural growl. Harry buried his face against the side of her hair, rocking her hips against his. She was perched on him. And fire magic…it was linked to Fawkes, to his bond. It was only natural he got that magic back first.
He'd have to remember that later tonight when they started robbing graves. It might come in handy when things inevitably started trying to kill them. He wasn't stupid; he was well aware that would be a normal part of his evening out.
But for right now he breathed in her scent, feeling her fingers rake their way down his front, his chest rumbling. "Just so you know," he muttered, "you squeaked."
She half-growled against him. "Shut up."
"Make me."
"How I about," she said with sinister amusement, "I smother it out of you?"
Harry couldn't help but snort. "If you're going to hold that against me," he threatened, "that's the last time I try to help cure you from sneezing."
"I don't recall," she whispered, "ever saying I was a fan of suffocation, Potter." Despite the annoyed quality of her intonations her hips rocked against him, her legs tightly wound around his ass, arms around his neck.
Strangely, oddly, the mere thought of pressing his lips to hers, depriving her of the basic ability to even breathe on her own had him tugging her closer, the will to possess in every way rising up. "Told you Kaylens," he drawled darkly, "would have got you breathing again."
She made an indignant sound. "Not if you'd set us both on fire. Really, turning your coat into a campfire?"
"What?" he questioned, voice raspier than he remembered it, "I got it out didn't I? Unless you wanted me to let it burn? Smoke would have been a bit," he glanced up at the low ceiling with a frown, "problematic." Fingers kneading her spine, he dryly added, "Unless you're a fan of asphyxiation and are just looking for an excuse for me to give you mouth-to-mouth agai-"
Kally's lips found his neck, assaulting his pulse point, and he about died. It shut him up, yet something niggled at the back of his mind, trying to get his attention, but the shots of sensation shooting from his neck, rising his hair, sending goosebumps across his flesh at what Kaylens was doing to him…he could barely stand.
There was something he should be remembering…
Whatever it was he lost it the second Kaylens went for his belt. Holding her tight he allowed her feet to slide back to the floor. She had it off quickly, no fumbling this time, only he barely caught her wrist before this too was lost to the ages. "What," he demanded, "is with you and losing my belts?" He arched a brow.
In the shadows her lips twitched. "Hate pants staying on you?"
His chest thundered at what they were about to do.
For a second they both fell silent, the sound of a tour outside passing, the voices muffled by the crypt's thick concrete. Harry's viridian held her gold, a warmth swelling in his chest as he watched the corner of her lips twitch, both coming to a silent agreement to be quiet until the tour was past.
And then it was.
He had Kaylens on the ground in a heartbeat, having knocked her legs out from under her, his arm beneath the small of her back and arching her hips up against him. "Kaylens…" he murmured, desperate. She was allowing him this, letting him do whatever he wanted, trusting him.
He could probably kill her and she'd allow him that pleasure.
The rough ground dug at them both. The back of his wrist, it underneath her getting scratched, bloodied against it.
Harry didn't even bother taking her pants off. He grabbed at her waist so brutally it had to be painful, Kally gasping, his thumb flicking the top button of her jeans open before his large hand disappeared down the front, fingers finding her, circling. Her undergarment had been damp with what he'd already done to her, her desire evident. Kally's chest was rising, falling as he massaged her in slow, rhythmic motions, refusing to go faster, refusing to give her the release she wanted. His eyes glued to the rise and fall of her breasts as she made small keening sounds, desperately trying to catch her breath, to keep up with what he was doing to her, Harry half wondering what would happen if she couldn't reclaim the oxygen she needed, but he wasn't eager to slow down and allow her the time.
He wanted this; he wanted her.
Her neck arched back, his name moaned on her lips. So fast was her breathing that the thin fabric covering her breasts barely held, Harry eagerly awaiting it to break as his fingers moved faster over the silky fabric she called an undergarment. Her jeans were tight, leaving little room for his hand to maneuver, work, Harry uncaring as he forcibly shoved his hand lower until he felt a warmer, damper spot on the fabric, his fingers slipping it skillfully aside, sliding slowly, purposefully in.
The sound Kaylens made was enough to have him sell his soul to Voldemort, if only to hear it again.
He drug his fingers out of her, slowly, painstakingly, raggedly, before once again pushing them in. Beneath him Kaylens whimpered, Harry hovering above her as he repeated the motion, movement agonizingly slow. In, then out. In, then out. The fact that he was in her, in a different way struck him, Harry slowly pulling his fingers back out, the larger part of his hand rubbing against her outer, sensitive parts, brow furrowing as he worshipfully watched her countenance's every reaction.
Kally writhed against him. "Merlin…Harry…"
"Not," he corrected, hint of humor on his lips, "my name."
Then he dropped his face to hers, claiming her lips, his fingers finally beginning to move faster. Kaylens whined, rocking her hips up to meet him. The flicking, circling creating a rising, hot friction that had his girlfriend incoherent. Kally clawed at his thigh, at the floor, fingers leaving streaks in the ash as he debated whether to keep going or to stop before he pushed her to climax, too far, too soon. Harry's own jeans began to strain against him, breathing hard. All he wanted in this world was to mark her as his, a possessive, dark urge rising up. He wanted to pleasure her; he wanted to own her.
Kalliandra made another one of those sinful sounds, clenching around him, Harry beginning to deliberately slow his movements, bringing her back down.
His witch begged, murmuring incoherently, a plaintive plea on her lips to not stop, please.
Harry didn't care. When she climaxed he wanted to be inside her, owning her. He pulled back, slowly extracting his fingers from her. Her eyes flickered closed, the non-witch growing limp, laying there, lips parted breathlessly, as if he really had smothered her, the non-witch trying to reclaim air and sanity all at once.
It wasn't until he'd grabbed onto either side of her hips, straddling her, looping his fingers in her jeans and pulling them down her long legs that she roused. Startled eyes flew to him, an aberrant glittering in her irises, like dozens of tiny fireflies. The sight alone made his stomach clench pleasurably.
He'd driven her to that. He'd driven her to this.
Kally's hands were on his chest, shoving him up, the two now sitting up, clawing, kissing. Blindly she was trying to remove her boots, Harry's arms wrapped around her half-naked form. She cursed against his lips about nineteenth century laces, Harry's chest rumbling in a deep laugh, before she finally succeeded in kicking them off with a triumphant sound and a clattering thud.
Once more Harry was on her. He was on her before she'd even kicked off her jeans. Only this time Kally's hand found him, freeing him from behind his zipper, Harry groaning as she caught him in the cold air, her delicate fingers stroking, caressing. Her hair lay splayed out in the thick, black ash covering the floor, tainting her hair color where it rubbed deeply in, Harry uncaring. His fist tangled in it. He groaned against her lips, his other hand sliding down her skin. Her skin was cool to the touch. Unsurprising. It was cold. She was cold. Not unlike their first time she was shivering, quivering beneath him from the chill in the air and he hadn't noticed.
Harry seized onto her waist, on both her sides, a warming charm spilling out of his palms and into her form. His magic filled her, penetrating her organs, Kally whimpering. Harry's fingers flexed deeply into her, just beneath her ribcage, a second charm spilling out as he slid his hands mechanically up, Kally's entire body quivering beneath him.
He might not be able to do full magic yet, not all of his reserves back, but fire magic, magic involving heat…
Well hell, that he could do.
Harry brutally grabbed at her bra strap, not bothering to slide it off and instead giving a singular harsh tug, snapping it off. It snapped against her skin, Kaylens whimpering in pain against his mouth, but he didn't stop. He didn't care; he honestly fucking didn't. His hand slid lower down her form, Kally's free hand doing the same.
Everywhere she touched pinpricks of magic trailed, like tiny bits of static electricity, Harry feeling as if he were being pleasurably shocked into life with every brush of her fingertips. For all he knew he'd died, was still laying on that beach in cardiac arrest, and she was shocking him back whenever he dared try to flatline again. He wouldn't put it past her. She was vindictive enough to not allow him the chance of an afterlife. He could barely fucking breathe, barely think, jerking spasmodically whenever her magic was too much. Kally was wickedly unaware, her other hand continuing to move up and down, up and down, it taking all Harry had to remain in his right mind.
Her fingers were sliding down his chest, his abdominals, feeling, grasping, touching every part of him that she could on the way.
Harry couldn't take it.
His fingers found the delicate string of her panties and angrily grabbed at them, his forearm stiffening as he jerked them off her hips in one harsh move, fabric tearing.
Kally squeaked, startled, but Harry didn't care. A nasty red line has been left where they'd snapped. He still didn't care. He had her, the witch he would make plans with, the witch he'd saved, the one who'd saved him, naked and beneath him, doing her very best to drive him over the edge.
His hips jerked, a rising ball in his stomach wanting to explode as her hand stroked faster against him.
He caught her around the wrist abruptly, stopping her. He was so, so close. Confusion shone in her eyes, Harry's fingers instantly sliding, entwining with hers, needing her to understand. If she didn't stop…
Fuck. If she didn't stop, there'd be nothing left for them to do here.
Understanding sparked within her incredible eyes.
Then her lips twitched into a teeny smile.
A second later she clamped down on them as she quietly suppressed laughter.
Harry outright growled, grabbing and yanking her abruptly to him, words a muttered threat against her ear. "You try being celibate for half a year," he rasped, "get given this, and then tell me you'd last."
Bodies pressed tightly together, his arm firmly beneath her form, Harry physically felt her shaking. Only this time it was with repressed peals of laughter, Harry nuzzling the side of her face and grumbling darkly, "Troublesome woman."
Abruptly she laughed harder, hands abandoning him to cover her mouth. Harry jerked back to observe her, his annoyed gaze turning into narrowed slits. Her eyes positively sparkled with mirth above her fingers, and deep inside him he felt something rumbling, amused.
It billowed up past the insidious, lurking darkness shadowing this entire place, Harry's undiluted love for the girl beneath him the only reason it hadn't overtaken him. Through it, through all of it, Harry Potter stared at Kalliandra as she outright giggled, his own chest finally rumbling in deep, dry mirth. "You know," he muttered darkly, "you're going to pay for this, yeah?"
Not daring to remove her hands from over her mouth, his girlfriend gave a small nod.
Harry stared, hovering there, eyes raking over her spectacular form. "Your glibness under duress," he dryly growled, "is what most impresses me."
This time he physically felt her giggle.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Harry maintained his glare.
Then he lost it.
He outright snorted.
Kally sounded like she was choking, Harry snagging her hand and yanking it away from her mouth, only to find her biting fiercely down on her lower lip beneath it. "Stop that," he half growled, nudging her face with his, "I'm going to need that later." And he meant that, as in about twenty seconds from now.
Kaylens instantly stopped her abuse of her mouth, Harry claiming each of her lips – first her abused lower, then her upper – with immediacy. He tugged them between his own, sucking them soothingly, as if apologizing for the abuse their owner had inflicted.
At some point he'd stopped soothing and began kissing, his mouth roaming over hers, hers over his, the subtlest of movements beneath him, Kally's bare hips lifting and pressing directly against his reminding him how hard he was for her.
His chest lurched, heart skipping. Harry jerked back, staring at her through a lidded, hungry gaze.
Kally lay beneath him, her pale skin warmed in the murky light pouring down from the crypt's high-set windows. Ash was smeared across her bare skin. Black smears streaked across her arms, hips, calves. A small streak was on her left cheek, just beneath her eye, it cute in a way he was ill equipped to understand.
Kalliandra wet her lips, looking at him, clearly seeing the same. Hesitantly, with a shyness not bellied by their current state, her hand rose, fingertips brushing ash from his jaw with a small smile.
He loved her.
Harry croaked the single most important question: "Kal…are you sure?"
There, surrounded by the bodies of the dead, sealed inside a vault, dark impulses and needs and whispers infiltrating both their minds, Kally met his eyes and breathlessly nodded.
Harry never got a chance to take off his jeans.
Their hands were all over one another, the hardest part of him brushing against her most intimate opening, Harry pausing, hesitating. Something screamed at him to stop, to listen, but over the thundering of blood in his ears it was all drowned out. All he could hear was the hitching in Kalliandra's breaths, a tiny, needing sound falling forth from between her lips.
He was here; so was she. He could claim her, take her. All these months he hadn't been with her, this Kally not his Kally, not really, not yet. Now here she lay, willing to give herself to him, and he was hesitating.
"Harry…" she begged, squirming beneath him. "Harry please."
She twisted her hips, so that he brushed harder against her, Harry barely able to breathe as for some cursed reason he stayed immobile. She shifted again, lifting her hips up, Harry's tip sinking into her a fraction of an inch, then falling out. He felt the torn fabric of her undergarment brush against him, the cursed Reach repeating the motion.
He sucked in a breath between his teeth at the glorious torture.
Kally's whispered pleas devolved into soft moans, the pain from his bleeding knuckles poignant as he held himself up, hand on one side of her head, her hair splayed messily out around her head. The two of age practitioners looked at one another, unable and unwilling to move away, Harry suddenly, inexplicably needing to caress her as if she were delicate glass.
His hand slid down her cheek, taking his time, Kally shivering beneath his touch.
Abruptly Harry rolled his pelvis, his shaft pressing against her opening, his darkening eyes nearly rolling back. Had he been able to see through Kally's eyes he'd have realized they'd darkened to a deep forest green. He rolled his hips once more, pressing firmly to her. Any movement on either behalf would finish it. With a breath he pressed a centimeter down, a fraction of an inch inside her, a shock of pleasure rocketing through him and nearly blinding him. His body begged him to just press down, to fill her, to take her virginity and mark her as his. It felt like he was burning up, words grunted out. "Kal…I want you. I want you so badly…" He caressed her face, Kally nuzzling his hand.
He couldn't hold back much longer. He was hesitating, not knowing why.
Kally's fingers raked through his hair, Harry shuddering at her touch, eyes locking with hers. The trust swimming in her gaze, the deep, abiding want that was there sending his pulse pounding, Kally begging…
Something Harry didn't fully hear hissed in the far recesses of his mind. If he was going to kill her he might as well use her first.
He sunk in.
Slowly, agonizingly he felt himself cross that threshold, one there was no going back from. He was surrounded instantly by warmth, pleasure. Kaylens whimpered in a pain he hated himself for causing yet wanted to cause more of, Harry burying himself in her until he could fill her no further.
Unlike before, unlike later in time, he felt her walls stretching to accommodate him.
He'd thought he'd taken her virginity before, in that steaming Gryffindor locker room, but he'd been wrong. It was why she'd had no pain then, why it'd been pleasurable for them both. They hadn't known. She hadn't been a virgin then, but she certainly had been now.
Beneath him Kaylens shimmied as if unable to figure out how to move to alleviate the pain and gain more of the pleasure that was leaving her gasping. It was like she couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. All she could do was whimper, rolling her hips and clawing his back. That was okay though. Harry'd done this before. He'd show her.
And he did.
Taking a firm hold of one of her hips, hand sliding to the back of her butt, he growled for her to move like this, helping her, guiding her. Harry's breathing went erratic, mind not comprehending where he was, what they were doing. The mind numbing sensations robbed his thoughts as his hand clenched against her ass, forcing it up again and again into him, his knuckles bashing against the coarse ground and leaving a bloodied trail. He didn't care as long as it kept her moving with him. And when he was finally certain she'd continue to move, that she understood how to move, he freed her.
Kally threw her head back and let out a cry.
His grip slid down her chest, groping, grabbing, massaging her breasts and nipples until she writhed and moaned, clawing his back. Harry's mouth buried against the side of her neck, feeling her pulse beating frantically beneath as he drug his lips down to her collarbone, never once stopping, never once letting up. Her collarbone stood out so prominently and he sucked on it.
Harry's lips slid farther down, back arching to stay within her as his mouth found her breasts, suckling, kissing, nipping… her torn bra still barely clung to her, and Harry's teeth tugged it out of the way. Kally made a sound he barely recognized as human. It probably wasn't.
There was magic in this. The coupling between two practitioners intertwined magic itself. It was temporary, fleeting, yet all the more potent when the coupling was a wizard or witch's first, before the practitioners knew how to fully control its release in the throes of sensation. It exploded, bled into one another, marking the two in such a way that it could never be changed. Before it'd happened to Harry, and now…
Now it was happening with Kaylens.
Kally's hand slid beneath the backs of Harry's jeans, clenching against his glutes. Harry groaned as he moved within her, the two never knowing, never realizing that their magic was already intertwined.
Harry's heart shared Kalliandra's life energy, beating only because of her.
Kalliandra drew breath, her mind intact, only because of him. He'd forcibly, willingly torn magic out of his own blood and given it to her.
And the ancient magics of war had long since touched them.
Once magic had been touched by another, truly touched, it was changed. Magical creatures, unicorns, could even sense it. It was why unicorns preferred virginal women; there was something different in their magic before and after, and now Kally's was changing, Harry holding her close, moving, claiming her, taking the virginity she had left.
In that moment, in that very instant, Harry stole it from her.
He also forever gave her a part of himself.
Kally wouldn't remember any of it.
Harry's breath caught, jerking up to look at her. Every reason, every hesitation he'd had to not do this with her came roaring back. One day soon he'd be pressing a wand to her temple, removing every last trace of this. His stomach wrenched, but he was already in her, inside, becoming one person. He was sunk in down to the hilt, their hips bucking up and down, Kally's fingertips digging into his shoulders, sliding down his arms, clutching at his triceps and insanely enticing him to continue.
It was too late.
Harry looked into her eyes with every ounce of apology he could muster, then, heedless of anything else to do wrapped his arms around her, pulling her form close, tight against his chest.
Harry began to move slower.
She was tight, so tight. He sunk deeper, embedding himself fully within. Kally whimpered in slight pain. Each cry sent him stilling, summoning strength he hadn't known he'd had as he screamed at himself to be gentle, to slow, to not hurt her.
He wanted to take her, violently, aggressively against the ground, something dark and menacing begging him to do exactly that. He held back. He held back because he loved her, because something in him knew exactly what real love was, even if the horcrux didn't.
Their unique set of circumstances, the unheard of mixing of magics, allowed him to resist it. He could still tell the difference.
Harry dragged himself out of her desperately slow, the need for friction rising like a hot coil in his gut. Each time he pulled out he did it slowly, thrusting back in harder. Each time Kalliandra gasped, whimpering, it a pleasurable pain, the sounds she made exquisite. She writhed beneath him. Again and again he moved within her, maintaining his steady, rhythmic pace. Their mouths took turns suckling at one another's necks, lips…an urgency was building in him, fire in his veins, but still Harry refused to hasten this. He refused to rush.
He wanted her. He did. He wanted to bash his hips into hers again and again until her head was thrown back, tendons within her neck standing out, her collarbones exposed as she screamed his name and he rode her hard enough for her screams to wake the dead.
Harry needed to come. He needed to. This slow, impossible pace was driving him mad. Kalliandra's fingers clutched at his shoulders, dragging down his back, his zipper digging against her thigh, forming an angry red line against her delicate skin with every move, yet his witch never let loose one complaint.
He continued his slow, methodical movements, dying a little death every time, Kalliandra's breaths coming swifter, quicker. His own were ragged, barely resembling human. His witch's hips began to rock beneath his in a frenzy, silently urging him and granting him permission and begging him to do more.
Abruptly Harry pulled out too far, the most important part of him – the part that let him be one with her - nearly slipping out from her body, the cold air attacking from all sides. Panic at the sudden loss seized him. In animalistic response he thrust roughly, deeply into her, slamming hard against her insides, needing to once more feel her-
Kally let loose a pained sound that sent his blood congealing.
Harry froze.
Something within his mind hissed, a twistedly pleasured need pulsating through him at the fact he could make her sound like that, yet raw, undiluted panic overwhelmed it, flooding his veins at the mere thought of having hurt her. He couldn't, wouldn't, parts of him throbbing as he went impossibly fucking still within her, the need to claim her, to keep moving, to keep this glorious feeling between them persisting threatening to tear him apart from the inside out.
Harry's hand tangled in her impossibly golden hair, frantically stroking her face, mouth turned against her ear, words a desperate plea. "Kalliandra," he murmured. "Kally, are you alri…"
Her swift lips against his cheek were her response. Her urgent kisses travelled until they found his mouth, silencing him. Harry realized that she wanted this, even if it hurt, even if she bled, even if he felt her blood trickling down his thigh, even if it was different the first time, the wizard only able to accept the gift that she was as he began to kiss her furiously back. Kally's fingers raked through his hair, down his back, her hands curling against his jeans to wordlessly press him into her deeper.
Harry could have died then and there.
His fist twisted in her honeysuckle-scented hair, Harry's arm around her shoulders tightening, their hips pressing together again and again, bringing them as physically close as two humans could ever possibly be and it still wasn't fucking enough.
Harry wanted her closer, wanted to be a sodding part of her. He needed her in ways he couldn't comprehend, and he held her to him, held this, wanting this slow, agonizing torture to never end. Only it was no longer slow. It was faster, frenzied. Kally whimpered beneath him, crying out as he used her body, bucking against it, Harry's mouth colliding with hers. The pressure of their warring mouths was the only thing to muffle her incoherent pleas. Any tour traversing past the mausoleum would surely hear, would surely think ghosts had awakened, crying out to the heavens for help.
Harry didn't care if they heard; let them.
Kally made soft, needing sounds against his skin as anyone, absolutely anyone could break in. Voldemort himself could, Black could, even Dumbledore could and Harry wouldn't have noticed. He wouldn't have spared a second glance. He'd have been hit in the back with the killing curse or a stunner before he'd even notice something had happened.
He buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent, fresh rain and honeysuckle coalescing with the crypt's smoky, stale smells. Each thrust sent him groaning loudly, Harry wanting to come deep inside her, wanting to fill her. The cement dug brutally against his knees, tearing holes in his jeans and skin, each pained cry from Kalliandra met with a tightened hold on his jean pocket and a shove, Kally's wordless way of telling him to please, please keep going and to not stop.
Harry didn't.
He instead about lost his fucking mind.
He grabbed her roughly, dragging her back brutally off the ground, arching her up to clutch against him, bending her spine as he thrust into her again and again. She cried out, Harry almost stopping, almost wanting to, but she didn't tell him to stop. So he continued to hurt her. He continued to fuck her against the ground. She whimpered incoherently, but it'd been so, so long. Her cries drove him towards a cliff's edge, and Harry wanted nothing more than to plunge from it and into her. The possessiveness, the fierce, dark need to ensure she was his and only his ricocheted through him and a hot, pulsating need rose within his stomach, their magic crackling together.
His cock throbbed within her. It throbbed, screaming for her, desperate. Harry needed release, and only she could give it.
It was like having pure magic, tiny electrodes pressing up and down against his shaft, caressing him, enveloping the hardest part of him as he slid roughly in and out, in and out of her like some kind of deranged animal. It made him want to scream at the intoxicating torture. Sex with anyone, anyone else could never match what Kaylens could do to him without even trying. No one else would ever be able to wrap their literal fucking magic around his dick. He groaned her name, his hand crushing against her back, Kally begging against his mouth – for what he knew not, but his name fell from her lips again and again – and Harry's eyes began to see black as oxygen left him, a buzzing in his head. There was no need to breathe, only to claim her, take her, mark her as his and only his as he kissed her desperately.
Harry's hand grabbed a hold of her breast, clutching, kneading, coaxing her as he groaned against her skin. He felt the air change, golden pinpricks of light beginning to roll off her hands, sliding from her fingertips like water as she clutched at his shoulder blades. His own magic was rising, sparking, his discarded shirt abruptly igniting, catching fire off to the side…
That burning, rising ball within his gut shook, like thunder…
Kalliandra was his treasure, his gift, his possession, his love, his slave, his mate.
The ball inside him exploded.
Kally screamed.
It was like being hit with an ungrounded electrical wire. His body violently jerked. The air sizzled, the stench of burnt flesh and pain pronounced as Kally's fingers dug deep into his shoulders, burning his back, her electricity released in an uncontrolled burst. It sliced into his muscles. Harry's heart skipped, screaming in an arrhythmia. First it was the length of a heartbeat, then another. It nearly stopped, the wizard wondering if fantastic sex really would be the way he died, before his pulse finally leveled out, surviving.
He groaned in pain against her mouth, but it was also mind-numbing pleasure, Harry practically breaking her teeth as he drove her head back against the ground in a crushing kiss. Wave after wave seized him as he continued to come, Kally's body undulating beneath him in spasms, the burning hot coil in his gut rolling though him.
He spasmed inside her. It didn't stop.
It was like he'd died, then been zapped back to life, only to die again.
Maybe he still was laying, lifeless on that cursed beach, being defibrillated again and again back to life.
Harry groaned.
Kally made a sound of her own.
Harry was thrusting without reason.
The pulsating pleasure didn't end; the entire fucking world instead blurred.
Then it all went black.
The first thing Harry was aware of was a tingling against his skin. It felt like gently electrified water dripping down, trickling over his shoulders. A coppery, burnt scent was in the air. Harry distantly realized that he was bleeding.
Kally lay limp beneath him, her champagne colored eyes closed, lips parted as she quietly breathed. Or tried to. His entire body weight was directly atop her, slowly crushing her, a quiet whimper escaping her lips.
He'd collapsed against her, the strength having gone out of him as he'd filled her, Harry vaguely wondering if he'd ever be able to walk normally again.
Harry ignored the burning pain in his shoulder blades and eased himself off her, shoving himself up on one elbow in the interest of not crushing the non-witch he was in love with. Kalliandra murmured a thankful sound, Harry's mouth twitching tiredly at the acknowledgement. He brushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, breathing unsteadily. He was still in her, softening, unwilling and not yet ready to leave her, to feel that emptiness, that loss when he was no longer directly part of her.
Hell, he wasn't even entirely convinced he'd survived the experience. This could be the afterlife. Kaylens' release of energy could have very well killed them both, and they'd just woken up like this.
Then again, if they were both dead, things would look a lot more silver.
Shit also wouldn't be on literal fire.
What was left of his shirt was merrily burning in the corner. It crackled pleasantly, a smoky scent in the air, and Harry idly realized they were lucky that the entire mausoleum was made of concrete and stone. Beyond the shirt, nothing else was likely to ignite, the rest of their clothing scattered at a safe distance, so they wouldn't die in a fiery inferno.
Probably for the best, given he couldn't bring it in himself to give a damn right then anyhow.
A quiet sound came from beneath him, Harry's attention turning back to Kaylens. In the dim lighting his eyes swept over her. Her collarbone stood enticingly out with each softly indrawn breath, the remnants of her bra barely clinging to her, tattered and torn by his own hand, a sheen of sweat on her skin.
Looking at her, he felt like he couldn't breathe.
Kaylens arm lay limply at her side, fingers splayed weakly out amidst the ash, angry burn marks marring her fingertips.
Harry cringed at the blazing, blistering redness. He knew what had happened. Being careful to not touch the wounds he dropped his hand down to hers, gently closing his around her palm, bringing her injury up to his lips. He'd seen this before, back at Grimmauld Place. She'd had a nightmare, drawing in her sleep.
Harry had woken her up, but her magic had already been uncontrolled.
Kally had grabbed at the bunk bed post, all of her uncontrolled magical energy releasing violently into the wood, grounding herself out.
To this day there was a distinct burn mark left in the wood.
Judging from the pain in his shoulders Harry reckoned his back had become the equivalent of that poor, misfortunate bedpost. Only this time it had been pleasure, not pain that had caused it.
Why he wasn't dead was another matter entirely.
Harry began kissing the backs of her fingers, watching as they slowly healed, unicorn blood flooding her capillaries and making magic work for her, not against. Kally's eyes fluttered lazily open, sparkling with golden light, a sleepy smile touching her lips. Outside, anywhere else in the world, she'd have to hide that. But not here. Not now. Not with him.
"You okay?" he muttered quietly.
Her eyes flickered with confusion, before moving to her burnt fingertips. Then they slid towards him, the Reach wincing. "Should be asking you, actually," she murmured, somewhat guiltily. "How's your back?"
"Medium rare," he replied dryly. Seeing the way she winced, he brusquely added, "Really Kaylens, didn't know you'd be pulling out all the stops today. Remind me to get some body armor before our next round."
Harry's voice was gruff, serious, but his mouth twitched deviantly as he waited for her to grasp the jest.
She did, instantly. "Potter," she said with a trace of exasperation, "remind me to hex you later. You're terrible."
Giving her fingers one last kiss, releasing her hand, he shot her a wounded look. "Well damn, that's wounding. Was hoping that performance would have earned at least an E given you probably woke up half the cemetery."
Her lips instantly parted in protest, Harry chuckling lowly and quickly pressing his mouth to hers. Whatever words she'd planned to say died in a muffled, "Mmph!"
The fact that they'd done this; the fact that she'd allowed him this, knowing what he'd eventually have to do to her, wiping her mind; the fact that she still kissed him as if he were the first and only man in existence meant a lot.
Atop her Harry shifted, discontent to move, fingers raking through her tangled hair as he attempted to taste every inch of her full lips. He loved her. He loved her, yet as his mouth roamed over hers, he knew with clarity that he'd not once told her that during this.
Even he knew that wasn't good. Hell, he might get a T in execution, but he'd been upgraded from a D to an A when it came to understanding tactical errors he made with women. Specifically this woman.
Harry's lidded gaze cracked, quietly observing her as his shirt burned up the last of its fibers, smoke coiling along the ceiling. Every centimeter of Kally's smooth skin lay exposed to the cooling air, her nakedness stark contrast to the unzipped, rumpled jeans still clinging to him. Beneath him she lay, stretched out and as relaxed as a cat, their legs tangling as his hand found her lips, beginning to trace the contours of the mouth he knew so well.
"Damn…" he muttered meaningfully, promise of everything in that single word. "Kally, that was…"
She murmured a breathy, wordless sound. It was her silent agreement, Harry's heart swelling. "Yeah," he agreed. 'Yeah…like that." His hips dug against her, Harry aware that it'd be hurting her, and he shifted slightly, finally, inevitably, sliding out of her. Harry hissed a breath. Kally closed her eyes, allowing her head to thud dully back against the ground, a disappointed sound falling from her lips.
Outside of her, Harry felt strangely alone.
He felt possessive. He wanted to parade that she was his and only his to anyone that would listen. But they were alone, so Harry surrendered, only able to look at her, beholding the inelegant creation that was Kaylens, completely and entirely unable to stop himself from touching her.
Ron had once brutally pointed out that Kaylens wasn't pretty. She didn't have that something that Hermione, Ginny, the Patel twins, or hell, even Lavender Brown had. She simply wasn't cute.
Harry had to agree.
Kaylens wasn't pretty. She lacked that perfect symmetry that witches like Pavarti, Cho or Hermione had. It was barely noticeable, but just enough for the eye to catch. She wasn't the girl every wizard would fight over.
No.
Kaylens was fiery, feisty. She'd never let you in, and if she did she'd tear your heart straight out of your throat if you broke hers without a moment's hesitation. She carried herself with a certain reckless abandon, yet the depths of her vulnerability still shocked even him.
No. Kaylens wasn't cute. She wasn't Cho. She wasn't Ginny. Kaylens was the one that was either incredibly plain or breathtakingly beautiful, and there was no in-between. Take it or leave it. This was her, and Ron had obviously fallen into the seeing her as 'far too plain to merit a second glance' category.
Harry still wasn't sure if he was happy about that or if he wanted to hex Ron's balls off for the implied insult.
His best mate had missed what Harry hadn't. Her incredibly, improbably smooth skin; her perfectly shaped ears; her strangely flawless toes, her feet exquisite, the kind that made him absolutely have to touch them; her features that were angular enough to be beautiful, yet soft enough to be not intimidating, Harry now running his finger over the bridge of her nose, his non-witch eyeing him with a hesitant smile; the high cheekbones that were almost too high to suit her, yet somehow did; the vaguely almond-shape to her eyes, those incredible, unnatural irises framed with the darkest, longest lashes he'd ever seen.
And her hair.
Fuck. Her hair was the thickest, silkiest thing he'd ever fucking felt.
No. Ron was right. With her face, her form, she'd never be mistaken as cute.
No.
She was fucking beautiful.
"I love you," he muttered, words desperate, hoarse,"so fucking much." His brow creased, confliction in it, Kalliandra's spectacular eyes having flown back open, that aberrant glittering like a thousand sparkling, golden fireflies lighting them up with renewed force.
Harry didn't know where that'd come from, where the force of his confession stemmed, but it was bubbling deep within his gut and he reckoned if he didn't let it out he might actually die. He wondered idly if that was magically plausible and if Mungo's had any cases on record. Hermione might know. If so, that'd be one hell of a topic for a sex ed talk: careful who you sleep with, you might develop ill-conceived things called feelings and if you don't express them quick enough you could explode from the inside out. Messily.
Oh yeah, he could imagine Snape giving that particular talk.
Perhaps he should suggest it to Dumbledore.
For now Harry settled on watching Kaylens' startled face, the witch's lips parting as if wanting to say it back-
But she saw his expression. She saw the dark confliction in his eyes.
Her teeth clamped back down on her lower lip, the non-witch going silent.
She'd read his expression, known he wasn't done talking yet. She'd understood him. She always did.
He could have kissed her for that alone.
Harry's hand slid needingly up her side, a ball of knots tightening within his stomach. She wouldn't remember this. He'd have to rob her of the memory. Yet despite that, despite the sick feeling it elicited, an insane sort of courage rose up in him.
Harry's heart thundered like it would burst from his chest.
"Should have told you sooner, Kal," he disclosed damn seriously. "I love you." Green eyes stared into hers, his mouth dry. "I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you, and I want them to look exactly like you." His throat got tight, the thought filling a void.
Now he watched, waited. She said nothing, Harry releasing a dry breath, remembering something else.
"What you said before, about me liking the way that other girl looked better…hoping you can get why that was so damn laughable now." Because what he felt for Kally...
It was damn primal.
Her eyes shone in the dark, and Harry knew she understood.
He needed Kaylens the way he needed magic itself. He could live, physically, without either, but neither was a life worth having. And if it came between Kaylens and magic, if it ever came down to that, if she ever decided she wanted to leave the magical world behind, to take the Scotts up on their offer, to leave, well…
He already knew which one he'd choose.
Kally lay there, beneath him, staring. She'd gone so still that he'd have honestly been worried if he hadn't felt her quiet breathing through the rise and fall of her chest against his. Harry offered her a grim smirk, his grip slowly sliding beneath her back, gripping comfortingly against her spine. "Speechless? Well hell…at least you're still breathing," he mused dryly, "gotta say, that's improvement."
And then, just like that, Kaylens brow furrowed.
It furrowed as if upset.
Harry knew better; he knew she loved him, yet the sudden expression had his heart sink. Inside him something he hadn't known existed tightened, it hard to talk. "Kaylens?"
"Harry , that's…" His surname was absent from her lips. "That's insane. You're…you're just-"
She stopped.
Harry stared resolutely down, watching her eyes suddenly close, as if she'd rather do anything but actually look at him. Harry deflated, half afraid of the answer. "Just what?"
She'd started to shiver, subtly. "Insane. Absolutely insane."
Harry was pretty certain a knife through the chest would have felt better. Then again, when he'd first asked her out she'd called him insane too. Holding the backs of her eyelids with his he made no move to leave, but his fingers flexed around her spine, "Cutis caledum," muttered, the warming charm pouring out from his hand and into her back.
Now Kaylens shivered beneath his touch for a whole new reason.
Outside winter held an iron grip.
Kally wet her lips, before finally looking at him. "What do you mean," she whispered tremulously, hand sliding to his chest, "that's improvement?"
The feel of her fingertips against his pectorals, gently brushing as she traced slow, incomprehensible patterns across his skin made him want to scream. "Hasn't anyone told you," he said, "never to ask about the future?"
The golden specks of light in her eyes, specks that had finally nearly died out, ignited for a second. "So we're-"
"No." He cut her off, shaking his head with a grimace. "Not yet. I haven't…" he smirked humorlessly. "Haven't seen you yet, not since I turned seventeen. So couldn't exactly ask, but there might be this ring hidden in my desk…" He shifted his hold on her, and the back of his wrist scraped against the concrete. "That is if you'd still want me to even ask."
Beneath him Kaylens had gone so, so unbelievably still. No discernable sign that he had actually spoke.
But she was trembling.
When she finally spoke her voice was so quiet, so soft that he barely heard her.
"Potter…what happens to us that makes you decide you…that…" she paused, sounding worried. "That you need to ask that?"
Smoke drifted down, cold air infiltrating through one of the windows and swirling it. It was like a stale campfire. "I die." Letting out a stiff breath, he added, "Puts things in perspective, but…I told you that before." He'd just left out the whole Sirius-chat and metaphorical kick in the ass part, but he'd told her back at Dumbledore's cottage that at some point he'd died. "Nothing like seeing a bit of the afterlife to make me not want to dick around. Won't. Assuming," he added, arching a brow, "that you get your ass back to England."
Her head shook slowly, a worried frown on her lips. "Harry…" she murmured, his words jogging something, "what did you mean you haven't seen me?"
Ah, that. "Think of it," he drawled, "as a well-earned, prolonged vacation from my irritable ass."
The look she fixed him with could have frozen volcanoes, his lips actually twitching, before that same, familiar cold feeling he'd gotten the moment he'd found out she was being sent away returned.
He sighed, relenting under her annoyed stare. "The plague. You get sent off to help teach the cure's recipe to other Order members across Europe. I can't go, so…" His hand squeezed her side in silent explication.
There was no need to continue.
Her lips formed a silent 'o' of understanding, eyes flickering to rest unseeingly upon his chest, a distressed look touching her face. "That sounds…abhorrent."
"For me. You at least get sent with two replacement boyfriends." Harry snorted outright. "Congrats Kaylens, you get a blonde after all."
Now she just looked bewildered.
Harry suddenly remembered that she hadn't exactly met Jake yet. She would, in about a day back in her original timeline. He shrugged. "Don't worry about it. Just remember, I'm reserving the right to hex him the second you're back on general principle."
At that her lips actually twitched, his non-witch recovering quickly. "You are really bad at sharing, Harry. I can't even imagine what your 'plays well with others' reports must have looked like when you were six."
He quirked a brow. "A touch better than when I was five, a tad worse than when I was seven?"
She smacked his chest.
He merely smirked, a tingling radiating out across his skin where she'd touched, the subtle sign of her magic, of their magic, telling him everything he needed to know about her.
Harry loved her.
And despite their joking, despite her faint smile, he hadn't missed that she hadn't answered him, that she hadn't told him if she actually wanted him to ask her or not.
The idea of her saying no…
It stuck in his head, borderline obsessive.
You could force her….
He didn't hear the voice, but it was there all the same, whispering in the room. Kalliandra unconsciously shuddered beneath him.
"Sharing aside," Harry ground far more seriously, "can't help but notice you never answered, Kaylens."
Her eyes darted up, staring at him through the murky lighting, expression curiously unreadable.
Harry wasn't used to that. He wasn't. Sure when they'd first met he hadn't been able to read her, but now? Now he knew every expression, every brow furrow, every frown, quick or the lips, smile.
Only right then she was doing none of those things.
He could only think of one reason she might be looking at him like that.
Kally's eyes darted away, a tiny frown on her lips.
She looked like she was thinking.
If he'd learned one thing from Hermione and Ginny, it was that it was never good when a girl was thinking.
His mouth went dry, tongue hot. If she was thinking about it, it couldn't be good. Weren't girls supposed to blurt yes in an annoyingly happy explosion? An insidious feeling gnawed at the back of his mind, whispering that he was a wizard and she wasn't a witch. He could make her say yes. Make her want him. If she said no he could make her forget all of this, so that his Kaylens, the one back in his original timeline, the one who wouldn't abandon him, would never remember that she had ever harbored a second thought.
That sick, twisted voice had Harry's hair standing up on the back of his neck. He choked back a panicked swallow, not grasping how she'd do this with him, laying naked, touching him so casually, yet still hesitate at the thought of being with him.
Harry looked down at her, brow creased, heart thunking unnaturally.
He needed to know if she still wanted him to ask.
He needed an answer.
He needed it.
Just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore she moved, her fingers curling tightly against his chest, eyes flooded with concern. "So because you died, that's why you wanted to ask me…" she trailed off, her palm pressing flat to his chest, as if feeling for his heartbeat.
She'd been doing that to him ever since he'd been brought back. In the hospital wing, in his sleep… He'd noticed. She'd place her palm directly over his heart, eyes fluttering closed, before a serene expression befell her.
She was still doing it.
His mouth quirked grimly, eyes glancing down at where her hand lay, before flicking back to her. "In case the activities we just partook in didn't clue you in, Kaylens, I am, shockingly, alive."
Kally shot him a mild glare.
He simply shrugged in response, still feeling somewhat gutted.
That tiny, thoughtful frown returned. "So because you died…is that the only reason you wanted to ask?" Her hand lifted hesitantly from him, fingertips beginning to travel across his skin.
She still hadn't answered him!
He wanted to grab her, shake it out of her.
Something was wrong, something amiss. There was something he was supposed to be remembering; something he shouldn't have forgotten.
But he couldn't remember it. He just stared, bluntly answering her inquiry. "Yes."
She continued to idly trace patterns on his chest, not seeming aware she was even doing it. She didn't stop, but she now gnawed on her lower lip, as if…as if what?
It wasn't until she spoke again that he knew what.
"Hardly seems like a good reason to do that, Potter. That's too close to doing it because of panic. And that's…" she wet her lips, "Doesn't seem like that would work out well."
It was like being thrown into an ice bath.
Harry realized with cold, calm clarity exactly what the problem was. "You think the only reason I want those things from you is because I think we're not going to live long," he said flatly.
She shivered, eyes flickering up, open question in them. "Am I wrong?"
"Yes." That insidious voice had grown louder in his head. "I knock your head a bit too hard, Kaylens? Apparently it's escaped your notice, but even without the shared history my Kaylens and I have, I'm still wildly in love with you."
Her breathing quickened. "You talk about her like she's not me."
"She's not." He didn't so much as blink.
Kaylens did.
She shoved her hands against his chest, trying to shove him off. It knocked him up, barely, Harry still supporting himself on one arm, Kaylens still beneath him and very, very bare.
She tried to escape out from under him.
It wasn't until her arm moved that he saw the silvery-red blood.
Blood smeared on her shoulder, her smooth skin rubbed raw, his every thrust having scraped her form against the rough concrete more and more as their bodies had moved together.
Blood on her hand, already drying, from Merlin knew what.
Blood on her thigh…
Harry stopped breathing.
His hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm, fingers wrapping around it like a vice. Kally made an angry sound, trying to yank out of his grasp-
He held firm; Kally stopped.
She lay there, awkwardly. One leg splayed straight out, the other bent at the knee, her foot firmly planted against the cold ground, her calf rubbing up against a part of him that had so recently been in her. He could have groaned from the incidental contact alone, but he couldn't.
Kally's hair went tumbling down her shoulders as she leaned up on her elbows, fury flashing, like lightening, within her golden eyes.
"I hurt you." He hadn't realized. He hadn't noticed.
There was blood on the ground. There was blood in the ash. There was blood on her.
Kally looked at him with such indifference that he physically felt it. "Yeah well, I'm not her so don't let it trouble you." She tried to yank her leg the rest of the way up, to escape-
He jerked his own knee abruptly up to stop her, trap her, box her in. She lay partially on the ground, partially propped up, Harry hovering over her and preventing her flight. His breathing was suddenly harsh, ragged. He hated himself. "Kal…"
Kalliandra had such fire in her eyes that it was a marvel he didn't burst into flames on the spot, but she didn't move. A strand of hair hung in front of her face, her breathing shallow, upset, the faint scent of honeysuckle mixing with the smoky remnants from his burnt cusp of a shirt.
It was then that he saw the dried blood on the back of her foot, her heels clearly having drug against the ground as he'd taken her.
Taken her.
He'd taken her virginity, and now she was trying to run from him.
He'd implied she wasn't his girlfriend.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
He grabbed the side of her face with such veracity that she actually squeaked. Harry's fingers tensed, tugging at loose strands of her hair, knuckles grazing her cheekbone. "Kal," he muttered. "Kally, I'm sorry."
Irises he could have mapped studied him back, looking wet. "Are you?" Her words practically trembled.
"Yes." He didn't need to think about it; he didn't need her to run off, to tell him he was an asshole. He was well aware that he was. Just like he was aware that he didn't have the right to touch her. He didn't. Yet he was, and she wasn't pulling back.
She was trembling.
Harry's teeth gritted, mostly at himself. He could see wetness on her eyelashes. He didn't know what to do, how to fix this. Fred and George's hospital wing chats on girls with him hadn't exactly covered what to do when you've deflowered your girlfriend on a grimy crypt floor, before outright stating she's not the girl you're actually dating.
The girl in question had remained unnaturally silent.
He wet his lips. "Kalliandra," he croaked, "that…that came out wrong."
She scoffed skeptically. "Did it now?" A bit of ash flaked down from her hair, having been swept up in the struggle. Her eyes, an impossibly pale, golden brown with flecks of green and actual brown, followed its flight back to the floor, the non-witch finding something there fascinating, because she was scrutinizing it, refusing to look away.
He was trying not to touch her; he was. He was also failing. Harry's hand found her chin, the gentle scrape of his calluses against her soft skin intoxicating. He didn't know why she still, for some inexplicable reason, let him touch her. She hadn't pushed him away again, hadn't told him to get lost.
His fingers slid gently beneath her jaw, then he tilted her face up, looking at her. "Yeah," he breathed, "it did."
Silence fell, the wind blowing, howling outside. Inside the crypt it scuttled in between one of the window's poor seals, dust and smoke and ash scattering around them. Black ash floated down on the air like they'd stumbled into the fallout zone of a volcanic eruption. Already smeared, covered in black soot, neither noticed.
Harry's gaze raked carefully down her form. She was naked, perfect, yet he wasn't studying her. He was checking for injuries, things he had missed in the frenzy, in his blinding, red desire for her.
The reddish, silver-tinted blood on her was already dried, the cuts and abrasions having healed. Still…Harry knew from personal experience that just because you healed quicker, it didn't mean that sustaining the injury itself wasn't painful.
He'd done that to her.
He hadn't even noticed.
It took all his effort, all his energy to take deep, controlled breaths. His callused thumb slowly slid across her jaw line, Harry's gaze not leaving hers. He wanted, needed her to understand.
"You're the same person, Kal. I just…" He stopped himself there. There was no apologizing for what he'd said. "You can slap me if you want."
At that she actually looked up, a faint smile touching her lips. "You know," she said quietly, "Dean has this wonderful set of brass knuckles…"
He growled outright. "Of all the times to mention Thomas…"
"Didn't think you'd mind," she said calmly, "what with you already having a bettergirlfriend and all."
His hand dropped from her jawline, falling to his side. "Kal," he whispered, "I really am-"
"And I'm really," she said, "not sure I care." Sucking in a breath, she glanced around the crypt, as if looking for something, mumbling, "You're a real prat sometimes, Potter."
"No arguments here." Whatever she was looking for she didn't find, the non-witch sighing. Harry just grimaced. "Though to be fair, by now you have to know when I'm an asshole I don't mean it."
Her lips parted, as if to say something, before snapping back shut.
Then she thought it over again, looking at him with heartbreaking sincerity. "We shouldn't have done this." He didn't have to ask what she meant by this. Even as she said it he could feel her beginning to shiver again, his previous warming charm shit against the pronounced January cold. Harry's hand dropped wordlessly to her side, clenching as she nearly jumped, the wizard muttering another warming charm to soothe her.
They shouldn't have had sex.
"You're probably right," he admitted. "But…" he paused. "Do you regret it?"
She sneezed on the ash, nose wrinkling, the non-witch shockingly mumbling, "No." Eyes downcast, she said, "Though I'm also just some girl you're going to obliviate so what does it matter?"
Alarms went off in his head.
It wasn't until that very second that Harry realized how scared he was, how afraid he'd been that she'd break up with him, tell him to get lost. The idea of losing her scarier than anything. "I love you, Kally." No beating around it. No fluff. "No matter what timeline I'm in, alright?"
This time when she looked at him she didn't seem like she was about to cry or snap. Almost imperceptively she relaxed, tension draining from her shoulders, her collarbone standing out less prominently. Her bare foot slid across the concrete, ever-so-subtle, looking less set to stand up, to flee. Her eyes stopped looking anywhere but at him, somehow seeming calmer.
And still she said nothing, leaving him to fumble.
"Look Kaylens," he pled, eyes locked down on her, "I just…I hate that you don't know me as well as I know you right now." Tone lowering, he pressed, "You have no idea how fucking hard that is."
With maddening slowness her eyes flickered up to meet his. "I know," she whispered, so quiet he'd have thought it a phantom had he not seen her lips actually move.
Harry nodded, unable to think of anything else to say.
His eyes shot down towards her legs, the blood on her inner thigh giving him pause. Harry wasn't dumb. He knew what'd caused that. He swallowed thickly. "You're bleeding." An invisible giant was surely strangling him. "I hurt you."
She didn't deny it. She gnawed on her lower lip, eyes lowering timidly.
Kaylens was never timid.
"It's okay," she finally said, leg shifting. "I think…I think this is normal."
For the life of him he couldn't tell if she was asking or telling him. All it did was leave him breathless, that she'd allowed him this. Harry thought they were fighting, yet maybe they weren't. "You deserve better than a pensieve, Kal," he grated, voice hoarser than he remembered.
"Yeah well…" she rubbed at her leg, only succeeding in smearing the half-dried blood. There wasn't much, but against her pale skin… "Given the circumstances, don't think there's another option." She left it unsaid, but the quality of her words…
She didn't sound as if she particularly wanted to remember this.
"I'll find one," he promised. He might have botched this, but he'd find a way for her to remember. He would.
A second passed.
And then another.
She remained so, so close to him, the crypt's air impossibly cold without the movements of their bodies, without the steam. Harry studied her, the non-witch clad in nothing but a single sock, her wristlet hanging and steaming warmly in the air. "Kally," he murmured, "I'm trying."
And to his surprise she glanced up from beneath lidded eyes, murmuring, "I know."
Soft lips pressed suddenly to his. The feel of her mouth on his, moving, wordlessly requesting reassurance, insecure in a way he'd never known her to be…
She'd leaned up to claim him, despite all his missteps, despite how he'd tripped over his words.
Before Harry knew it he had her laying back down, gripping her sides, kissing her as if his life depended on it. "Kal," he gasped, hand tangling her hair beyond hope. "Kal, I'm so," claiming her lower lip, "fucking sorry."
She broke away to gasp. "Harry…Harry, I know. But…"
Harry abandoned her mouth, lips upon her neck, Kally making a small, unidentifiable sound. "Harry," she tried again, more insistently, even as he sucked, licked her pulse point, her form shuddering beneath him. "Merlin Harry…I have…questions." She sounded breathless, distracted.
The more he tasted her skin, the closer he held her, the less guilt he felt. "Go ahead," he muttered, hand sliding up her body, her form, groping her breast even as he arched her back from the cold ground, clutching her to him, growling threateningly, "No one's stopping you."
In an impulse he had her up, off the ground, tearing her back away from the unforgiving cement that had torn and scratched at her perfect fucking skin before shoving her bodily against the shelves.
Kally gasped against his lips, the shelves rattling, raining down dust.
Neither noticed.
A stab of need daggered through him, Kally's hands clutching at his back, nails raking over a musculature she'd burnt not minutes before even as she tried desperately to talk.
"Potter. Potter we should…we should stop."
He didn't.
Inside his head he heard that same hissing, that same thing telling him he could control her, hurt her, alter her memory and do what he pleased. It was growing louder. Swallowing, tasting the room's dust and the coppery flavor of his own blood from when she'd bit his lip earlier, he dimly heard her trying to talk.
"Harry…I'll dump you I swear to Merl-"
Her jerked his head up from her throat, eyeing her with a dark, burning gaze. "Funny, Kaylens. Real-"
And that was when he saw it.
A pit of ice dropped into his stomach, and instantly he wanted to vomit.
Kally was sitting up, leaning awkwardly against the lowest shelf within the crypt. At a glance it had appeared empty.
It wasn't.
A coffin, unassuming and unadorned, lay upon it, shoved all the way in the back, hidden amidst the shadows.
And on a cement placard, a name had been etched into the concrete.
Ross.
Harry's hands grew impossibly tight.
Kaylens blinked at him almost groggily, looking at him with swollen lips. "Harry," she murmured, as if under some sort of spell, "what is it?"
Had Snape walked in and caught him with Kaylens naked on his desk, his dick hanging out, only to pick up some papers and bid them adieu, he might have been less shocked. Had Voldemort waltzed in to announce his betrothal to Dobby, kindly telling him that he was going to grant him a stay of world war because he'd found a house elf stupid enough to love him, he'd have been able to blink. Had he walked in to find McGonagall and Dumbledore shagging on the staff table he'd have at least had a coherent thought.
But right now all he could do was stare.
The concrete was embedded with a crude carving, ten letters bringing everything into stark clarity.
Harry blinked, staring at the coffin, bearing that simple name. "Kaylens," he muttered, feeling odd, "your mother's maiden name…you said it was Ross, right?"
Kaylens' brow furrowed. "Yeah, but-" Pausing, she frowned. "Wait, when do I tell you that?"
"May," he replied distractedly. Harry's mouth had gone incredibly dry, but despite that, despite what he'd just figured out, his eyes snapped back towards the love of his fucking life.
Then he said the words embossed on the coffin: "Hazel Ross."His voice came out on a croak. Mechanically his grip slid from her, Harry leaning back on his legs, and for the first time since they'd stumbled into the crypt he gave Kaylens space.
Then he waited for her to figure it out.
He knew the precise second she did.
"Fucking hell…"
"Yeah…"
And then, just as quickly as he'd realized exactly whose coffin he'd been ready to shag Kaylens against, Harry watched as she put two-and-two together for every other damn thing.
She suddenly looked like she wanted to run.
She jerked away from the shelving as if it had scaled her, quickly twisting around on the ground, heedless of the further abrasions she sustained as she sought to put space between her and it, between her and him.
Harry knew, intuitively, that that was what she was doing. He didn't stop her. He didn't have to ask her. Hell, he didn't even have to look at her. Automatically he knew, and all he could do was sit there, feet under him, leaning back on his calves, otherwise immobile. It was all of a sudden rather hard to breathe, and he knew it wasn't from the taint of smoke still in the air, the ash tasted upon his tongue.
No.
It was because he'd scared the one person he'd never wanted to.
Her back collided against another set of shelving, dust dislodged and flaking down even whilst ash flew up into the air from beneath her from her startled flight. Now Kaylens sat there, her shivering pronounced, a wordless sort of upset and shock in her eyes as she stared across the mausoleum, past him at the coffin.
Harry wanted to turn back to her, to say something, anything to fix the poisonous sensation running through him, but he couldn't.
It was a long time before either one of them spoke, and when they did Kally was the one to break it.
"My God…"
Harry swallowed dryly. "Don't think God's got anything to do with it."
"Yeah…"
He hadn't missed the fact that she now sat as far away from him and the coffin as she could possibly get, at least in this small, confined space.
Somehow even the scant distance did nothing to quell the strange desire in him.
The non-witch shifted uncomfortably, shivering in a way that drew his eyes. Kaylens was thin, her form lithe, supple. Shivering, even in the increasingly dark space filled with shadows and diluted yellow light, emphasized this. Her stomach, abdominals were perfect, tightening as she quivered, her smooth skin trailing down, her hip bones jutting further out as she tried to keep warm. The slight movements her shivering caused sent her glorious hair spilling down, framing her face and kissable lips. It hardened certain parts of her breasts that made him want to throw her the hell down and start all over again.
Yet the way she was avoiding his gaze, as if scared…
That insidious voice in his head came into focus, as if it were laughing. It urged him to do just that: throw her down and take her again and fucking again until they were both dead.
Harry didn't.
He didn't because now he knew what it fucking was.
His skin crawled.
Eventually he felt more than saw Kalliandra begin to move, the non-witch silently gathering her clothes within reach. Had he looked at her he wouldn't have been surprised to see that she started with her bright green sock, but he didn't look.
Instead Harry stared at the coffin, a slow, sinking feeling welling up in his gut.
He'd just had sex with her, stolen her virginity when he sworn he'd wait. Now he knew why he'd finally caved. He understood why he'd just done everything to her. It all made sense.
Slamming her up against the shelves, shoving her up on a coffin…
Slamming his mouth over hers, not letting her breathe…
The desire topossess her, to bend her in literal half, to his whims, as if she were no more than a carnival prize.
The unfettered roughness.
The shadowy threat of violence.
The lust.
The fact that he'd enjoyed trying to fucking suffocate her.
Kaylens' behavior made a lot of sense now too. Her sudden neediness, her insecurity, her uncharacteristic uncertainty about them that'd had him wanting to do nothing more than erase any doubts from her mind.
Hell, he'd more than erased it. He'd fucked it out of her.
If anything could have described Voldemort's relationship with Hazel Scott, what they'd just enacted as man and woman certainly did.
Harry's head began to painfully throb, a voice rising up. The horcrux was no longer hiding at the back of his mind, trying to go unnoticed.
No.
Now it just threw itself directly in his face.
And it laughed.
Like slow, sinister tentacles the horcrux's twisted desires seeped out from the crypt's walls, shadows moving, bypassing Kalliandra to claw at him. Harry jerked, putting distance between he and her as they leaked into his mind, drawn as his own angered piece of Voldemort's soul reached out, calling to its brother, eager.
His back hit the opposite side of the mausoleum, and then everything went black.
The last thing he saw was Hazel Ross' coffin.
The voice started to speak, clearly and loudly, no need for false pretenses any longer. Harry Pottttter, it whispered, thissss wasss ssssuch fun, wasssn't it?
Harry felt cold. He didn't need to ask what it thought was such fun; he didn't need to. He already knew what it meant. An image of Kalliandra sprawled out beneath him, her visage impossibly pale, full lips lifeless and for once devoid of argument, glorious eyes unsparkling, half-open and unseeing…
Only the horcrux wasn't content to leave it at simply that.
The image swirled, crystallizing into something far more terrifying.
Slowly, very slowly Kally's features subtly changed. The concrete floor of the mausoleum changed from gray covered with ash, to green grass and leaves. Instead of ash in her hair, there were twigs. The lifeless flecks of brown and green in her golden eyes disappeared, transforming to pure and undiluted gold.
And instead of laying still her form was moving, slightly. It was like she was being rocked, moved up and down, up and down across the earth, as someone, something moved in and out of her lifeless form, forcing what was left of her body to vibrate slightly.
A golden locket hung around her bruised neck.
Voldemort.
It was like a knife through the heart.
He'd taken her even after he'd killed her, before mutilating her, leaving her for the animals.
The voice laughed. It wasss all sssshe wassss good for Harrrrry. Sssssso uncooperative. Ssssooooo unwilling to usssse her powerssss for me. I could not allow her to usssse them againsssst me, so sssshe had to be dealt with. Ssssso I finissssshed it.
Harry's stomach churned.
You sssshould have lisssstened Harry….you sssshould have killed her….
"No," he choked. One word, one syllable. He didn't even realize he'd said it.
Tissssk. Tissssk. Tissssk.
Never. He'd never harm her.
Jusssst wait. You willlll.
Harry's hand clenched into a tight fist and he never noticed the ash in the room begin to slowly vibrate because he couldn't see.
Kalliandra Kaylenssss went out to play. Only to never return again sssshe dissssapeared that day.
The taunting….
Harry wanted to kill him. He wanted to find the bastard and tear his heart directly out of his throat. Riddle didn't just need to die. He needed to die painfully. He needed to pay! For what he wanted him to do to Kaylens. For what he'd already done simply because she looked like someone from his past. He needed to die for what he'd done to his own family, to Neville, to the Ross', to the dead girl laying in the coffin in front of them.
Harry Potter wantssss to kill me. The voice sounded oddly pleased. How unoriginal.
"Fuck you," he grunted, gaze clenching as pain began to build inside his head, like the headache from hell. Harry tried to block him out. He tried!
The horcrux felt it.
You fool! SSSSSTOP! Embraccce the desssire, Harr Potter. Become one of ussss. You enjoy the killing. I've sssseen it! Don't deny yoursssssself the pleassssure….
And then, as if egged on by Voldemort's words, the horcrux grew weary of waiting.
It launched out at him like a battering ram and the anger, the desire to harm, the obsession wrapped around his chest like an iron fist.
Pain exploded through his scar, Harry's hand flying to it, grabbing it as it sizzled.
You want to kill her, Harry Potteerrrrrr.
"No, no I don't!" He was talking to himself, in an all but empty room. He didn't see the stricken look on Kaylens' face. He didn't see anything but blinding red. He doubled over.
Oh but you doooo. You've killed before, Harry. You sssshould be with usss. The only thing keeping you from ussss issss her. You already are –jusssst- like usssss.
"I'm NOT!"
The booming roar echoed within the room and the voice simply laughed.
Far off, somewhere else, through the thick and impenetrable blackness, someone said his name.
Killerssss Harry. They have to stick together. We are the ssssame. Do you know how sssspecccial you and I are? Brothersssss. I cannot kill you, and you cannot kill me.
Harry's teeth were grinding so hard he'd drawn actual blood. He didn't notice. "I can and I will," he groaned.
Ssssuch Gryffindor nobility. We would both die, Harrrrry Potter. You don't want to die, do you Harry? Even if you didn't rid yoursssself of her dissstraction, you'd leave her all alone. And if you leave her all alone, sssuch thingssss I could do with her. Maybe I could turn her. Ssshe likesss to kill far more than Hazzzzel ever did. Yesssss. We could kill together.
Harry wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream. There was an acid taste in the back of his throat. He made a sound he was unaware of, words a terrifying grind. "You won't TOUCH her!"
The insidious voice within his mind just laughed.
"Harry…Harry please."
Part of Harry recognized that voice. He knew it, even if he could barely make it out.
The voice sang. Harry Potter wassss a fool. Doooo dahhhh, do daahhhh.
"Damn't Potter…."
Kally.
Harry seized onto her name, her image like a lifeline. He couldn't see her. He was clutching his scar, half on the ground, half not as he groaned in pain. He didn't know he was doing this. He didn't know that he was writhing around like an injured animal. He just knew that the voice was so, so loud in his head. It showed him images of him strangling her, harming her, hurting her over and over.
The images seemed to flash between her and someone who had looked just like her. That someone had wronged him. She'd hurt him.
Harrrrry, I sssupossse if you are a good boy I could let you have her. Join me. Convinccccce her to do assssss I assssk, to be a good little sssservant and you and I can rule. If sssshe refusssses you can –control- her, forcccce her to be yours, to be oursssss. Women sssshould be sssstrong and follow ordersssss after all.
Harry's head was bent, his entire face scrunched in pain. "She'll never…take orders…from you."
Then ssssufocate herrrrr. Do it. Kill herrrrr. It wassss her who wronged ussss, Harry.
Harry's scar had begun to steam in the cold air.
Kally was trying to talk, to reach him. His heart warmed, until the voice threw a bunch of dirt over it, like a hiker trying to smother a fire.
KILL HER NOW!
Harry's head jerked mechanically up, unseeing, but hands reaching-
That's when the literal shock hit him.
Harry jerked, whole body spasming, then it dropped to the ground. It was like being hit with electricity. His muscles were left out of his control, not working as the voice egged him on to find her throat and crush it.
A second shock hit him, Harry's head striking the floor.
There hadn't been time to know what happened, but as his head buzzed the hissing voice faded long enough for him to hear another, far more familiar voice cussing him out.
Suddenly everything was very, very clear.
Through the thick shroud of black he heard her swearing at him. "Damn't Potter! Potter you're scaring me!"
Electricity crackled from her fingertips. Kally.
He had to protect her. Eyes clenched, Harry didn't answer her. Not right away. Not yet. He breathed heavily, like a bull in the middle of battle. He was unaware, but he was on all fours on the ground, head bowed low, scar steaming, words screamed in both his mind and within the crypt's small confines: "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
It echoed, Kaylens actually afraid - afraid of what he might do to her, afraid of what she might be forced to do to him, afraid that she wouldn't be able to act for fear of harming him.
She scrambled backwards until she collided with the door.
Harry never saw this.
Instead the voice in his mind, the voice trying to take control just continued to laugh, as if it was in no rush, knowing who would win inevitably.
Harry Potter killed hissss girl. Dooo dah. Dooo dah.
"NO!"
"Harry…." Inside the vault, trapped with a wizard acting insane, a golden haired girl stared at his hunched over form and spoke loud enough, a tremor in her voice even as she tried desperately to hide the note of fear in it. "Potter….Potter snap out of it. Snap the hell out of it before I have to hurt you. Please. I actually love you, you insufferable idiot."
Somehow, through the veil, he heard part of it. He heard her voice. Heard her confession, even after all he'd done.
Horcruxes were dangerous, insidious.
Neither of them had even realized what it'd been doing to either of them. But now Harry did. Now he knew.
Through the sinister laughter he choked a single response to her that was inexplicably calming.
"Okay."
Breathing hard he forced his mind to still. He imagined walls slamming up between him and the voice, it screaming in fury, yet muffled. He couldn't risk it taking over. He couldn't risk hurting her. Harry clenched his teeth, tasting coppery blood and just as fucking Severus Snape had taught him he searched, frantically, for the calmest feeling he'd ever had, because Occlumency didn't work if you weren't in complete control of your emotions, and right now…
Right now Harry Potter sure as hell wasn't.
Even with that thing in his head hissing and taunting and laughing it didn't take long for him to think of what could calm him.
It was surprising he'd ever had to think on it at all, actually.
It was Kally.
It was always Kally.
Waking up alongside Kalliandra, first thing in the morning, was the easiest choice.
It was sappy as fuck, but he gave two shits about that right now. He gave two shits because he loved it. He loved her. If he could spend every damn morning that way, with her, he would, in a heartbeat, no questions ever needing to be asked.
Waking up to hear her quiet, rhythmic breathing, her legs stretched out alongside his beneath half kicked off sheets, a single sock hanging off her foot, her other somehow always missing. The way her fingers would be splayed out across his chest, her face burrowed against his shoulder to avoid the sunlight spilling over them, that same daylight setting her fiery golden hair ablaze like a halo sent from the afterlife's antithesis. The scent of her hair strong in his nostrils, it of rain. It was always rain, mixed with honeysuckle. It was…it was…
Perfect.
He would never allow Voldemort to harm her.
And he'd die a thousand times over before he committed the act by his own hand.
It was almost laughable that the bastard ever thought he would.
And just like that his Occlumency shields slammed into place, one-by-one. It was harder than it usually was; the horcrux had had a lot of time to sink its claws into him this go around, but it worked, and in the end drawing on the complete and utter calmness he got just from holding Kaylens made it easy.
He heard Kally repeat his name again, only this time it was quieter, less urgent, now more of a hesitant question. Harry didn't answer. He didn't dare. Not yet. He had to get this right. He couldn't allow that voice in again. Not here. Not when he could hurt her.
Somehow she must have realized what he was doing, because she too fell silent.
It was awhile before he spoke. It was awhile before she even tried to get him to. Finally…"Harry?"
He lay slumped on the floor, breathing heavily. His gaze remained clenched, scar throbbing as if he'd been bludgeoned in the head with a dozen cursed beater's bats in a Quidditch practice gone wrong. But that wasn't what had happened; Voldemort had happened.
Slowly Harry opened his eyes, finding the black shroud had lifted. He was able to see in the oddly dark room, and what he saw was the love of his life crouched in a defensive position, staring at him as if uncertain what to do.
A strange smile touched his mouth. "Kaylens," he croaked in hoarse greeting, "you shocked me."
She let out a shaky breath. It sounded relieved. "Didn't give me much choice, Potter."
His heart threatened to pound out of his chest. He didn't want to consider that she was right. So instead he shoved himself off the ground, slowly sitting up. "Yeah…sorry about that."
Her eyes flickered, still looking frightened, wary. She wet her lips, understanding shining in those startling eyes. "Don't be." Her words were a practical whisper.
He could only nod, rubbing his scar wearily. "Yeah well, no offense," he grunted, "but prefer your other way of bringing me back from the brink better."
Kally let out a sigh, studying him for another second, before finally relaxing, leaning back on her hands. She looked as if she'd been through the emotional ringer. "Oh?" she said quietly. "And what was that?"
"Snogging." He drug his hands across his face, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and probably smearing soot everywhere. "You tackled me and snogged me out of it." He was talking about the future and not making sense, but somehow she still seemed to track what he meant.
"That actually worked?"
He choked on a bitter laugh. "Shocked the hell out of Riddle, that's for sure." He dropped his hands down. "Not exactly a secret you relax me, Kaylens. Kissing you helps me clear my head."
Kally's lips formed in a silent 'O.'
For the first time since he'd realized they were snogging on Hazel Scott's mismarked grave, he actually got a good look at her.
Kaylens sat there, somehow back in her jeans, her bra long since torn and useless, yet still hanging loosely from her athletic form. She sat topless in the dimming light, hip bones visible just over the crest of the low riding denim, a streak of soot on her left hip.
Harry's mouth went dry. His pulse sped. He reminded himself that any want he had for her would have to wait.
Voldemort didn't need any easy emotional routes back into his mind. Riddle had wanted him to hurt her, and he nearly had succumbed. The way he'd urged him to rob the breath from her, to still her breathing, to strangle her with his bare hands…
Suddenly Harry's throat got rather tight. He needed to tell her, to apologize. "Hazel Scott," he croaked, skull aching from the effort. "Riddle, he strangled her."
Sometime in May Mad Eye Moody would tell them that, and the images he'd just seen made a sick and twisted kind of sense. Hazel's body had been found torn and mutilated on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, but the official cause of death had been manual suffocation.
He knew who's hands had done the deed.
Minutes before Harry had been hornily depriving Kaylens of breath while screwing her, on the pretense of stopping her sneezing.
It was like being bathed in ice.
He knew, suddenly, precisely how Hazel Scott had died.
Harry'd had no clue how close he'd just come to killing his own girlfriend.
His stomach seized and the back of his throat clenched. He felt , unbearably sick.
During sex he'd avoided taking her, claiming her life, only by sheer will, because he loved her. He'd almost not let her up for air. Hell, he'd nearly had to stimulate her breathing. What if he hadn't?
Voldemort wasn't just a Muggle and Muggleborn murderer. First Myrtle, then Paul, then Hazel…
Tom Riddle had been a serial killer.
Hazel had just been a particularly meaningful victim.
All this flew through his mind, his entire body growing taut, stiff. He looked conflictedly back at Kaylens, scar throbbing, and knew it'd all occurred to her too. Still he looked at her, shame in his expression. He didn't try to hide it from her.
Despite that her eyes, her incredible fucking eyes, that and her glorious hair two things that could distract any red blooded male with their uniqueness alone, remained trained on him. A determined upset flickered within them, Kally's voice trembling as she tried to inject comfort into it. "Harry…Harry, listen to me…you didn't do it, Harry."
How the hell she always knew what he was thinking he'd never know.
The entire crypt smelled of smoke and stale dust, the fierce bite of winter crawling through the concrete walls. There was something unnatural in it. Harry felt it down to his bones. "I nearly did." He met her eyes, apology and fear there. "For a second I wanted to. And then just now-" he swore, dragging a hand through his hair. "Fuck Kaylens, I actually wanted to."
"That was the horcrux," she posed weakly, "not you. Even then you still didn't."
Harry met her gaze, voice a raw grind. "But I could have."
"But you didn't."
"Yeah well," he bitterly bit, "you were a fantastic fuck, so might have had something to do with resisting."
It looked, for a second, like she'd been slapped.
The expression was gone as quick as it'd come, something steely replacing it. "I highly doubt," she managed acidly, "even you believe that, Harry."
He ignored that. Harry hated himself. He truly did. "What if I hadn't let you up for air before Kaylens? What if you hadn't shocked me just now? What if I-"
"You really suck," she cut in, closing her eyes tiredly, "at shutting up when you really, really should."
Harry said nothing. She was right. He sat there, silent, watching the last ray of sun slip from the mausoleum's windows. It was too low in the sky now for it to continue filtering through the grime-covered windows. He only noticed because a thin sliver of light had remained cast across Kalliandra's countenance, and it now disappeared.
Kaylens hesitated, gnawing on her lower lip, brow furrowing. It looked like she'd expected him to say something else, to argue, but when he didn't she decided to push on. "You didn't hurt me, Potter." He scoffed, skeptically, Kaylens' eyes flashing in annoyance. "You didn't. In fact, you told me you resisted. I don't know a lot of wizards who would be capable of resisting against Voldemort's influence, do you?"
"You don't know a lot of wizards," he pointed out.
She hissed a frustrated breath, dragging a hand through her long hair. "Yeah well, I don't need to, Potter. Just like I didn't need to know a lot about magic to know not just any wizard could create a flying, golden bubble while fighting and levitate themselves into the air inside it. Just like I knew just not any wizard would take on Voldemort. Just like I knew just not any wizard would be so-so-"
"Impossible?" he supplied.
"Yes!" she hissed, eyes flashing.
He didn't look away. He didn't try. He just grimaced. "Kaylens you don't know what I was going to do."
She wet her lips. "You're right," she admitted. "I don't." Before he could even open his mouth with something self-deprecating she cut him off, "But I know what you did," she said tremulously. "You fought him off, Harry. You fought him off for me. You didn't need to tell me for me to know that." Again he tried to interrupt, but she wouldn't let him, words pouring out in a rush. "You didn't let me think I was unwanted, either. You broke in here just to prove that to me. You and I-we…we had sex. You told me you loved me," she paused, a tiny, sad smile touching her lips, "a little late albeit, but you did tell me." She sat there, breathing harder than her speaking warranted, Harry only able to look on, speechless. "Hell Potter," she whispered, "you even said you wanted to marry me." Shaking her head, she pressed, "Don't think that's exactly something you say to every," holding up a hand and making air quotes, "'fantastic fuck,' or is it?" Wetting her lips, she let out a half shaken laugh. "You even told me where you hid the ring. Not very debonair of you is it?"
She looked like she was trying rather desperately to hold it together.
He barely was.
Yet she was the one trying to make him feel better.
He and she sat there, on the cold mausoleum floor, and Harry's heart twisted in a thousand directions. There was only a meter, perhaps a meter and a half between them, but it might as well have been continents. "Told you," he voiced weakly, "I trip on my words enough around you as it is, and that's when you have a shirt on."
Her full lips parted, a displeased breath hissed out. "That's pathetic, Potter."
"Guilty." He never looked away, his own chest heaving as he insanely pondered what the hell he was doing. He'd just screwed her on a crypt floor surrounded by dead bodies. He'd just admitted that he'd contemplated killing her. He'd just taken things from her that he could never give back. He'd wipe her mind of that memory soon. Yet here she was, trying to soothe him, understanding exactly what he was thinking without him having to even voice it.
He choked down a hard swallow.
From across the shadows Kaylens proffered a tiny, weak smile.
He snorted. "Now who's pathetic?" Tapping his mouth, he then gestured at her to indicate his meaning.
She shot him an infinitesimal glare, and Harry couldn't take it anymore.
She was right. He'd done all those things.
And he'd do them again.
"I meant it," he muttered seriously, damn seriously. "I meant every word, Kaylens." Wetting his lips, not sure what the hell he was thinking he blurted, "Marry me. When we get back to the same timeline….marry me then." He wanted her; he wanted this. He didn't want it to end.
Moreover he wanted her to know how very desperately he wanted her for as long as he had life left in him.
Given the war that might not be very long.
Stomach dropping, he did not once remove his eyes from hers, adding, "I don't want to wait, Kaylens. Not anymore, so…" throat tight, "what do you say?"
Kaylens didn't react. She simply studied him from beneath several strands of hair that had escaped to hang in front of her eyes. "You still have to obliviate me," she reminded quietly, practically. "You'll have to remind me."
"Done." It required no thought. "Just don't say no."
"I won't."
His heart jerked. Harry stared. Kalliandra studied him hesitantly back.
She hadn't said no.
She'd told him exactly what she'd say, what she was saying.
His mouth went suddenly dry. "Don't exactly have the ring on me…"
"Potter," her familiar lips curved up into that faint smile, "when have you ever done anything by the recommended line?"
"Never." His response was instant. He could have laughed, heart fiercely felt in his chest. "Conventions are over hyped. Still, rather would have had the ring on me. Think I owe you that."
"Probably better, given you might change your mind once we're out of here," she pointed out, tilting her head towards the door. "You know, once we're not under its influence."
He considered this. He considered it long and deep. "Be more likely to change sides and snog Black," he told, "given I've been thinking about this for awhile, Kaylens. You're the one it was just sprung on. Sure you won't change your mind?" He arched a dark eyebrow up and cavalierly considered changing his hair to blonde, only because he now knew she was partial to it.
This was real. This was happening. This was light. It fought down the darkness for both of them.
"Well?" he probed.
Kally bit down on her lip as if suppressing a small laugh, her eyes practically sparkling, even if that shadow of upset still lingered. "Doubtful, Potter. Really, too good a snog to give up and plus, I don't like to share."
"Makes two of us."
"You sure about that? You did just get done saying how much you hate convention. Sticking to one girl is a bit conventional…"
Harry outright snorted, dragging his hand through his hair, unable to reconcile the fact that this was his life. "Yeah well, one girl is the only convention I like. The rest are troublesome, rather like you."
"Mmhmm," she murmured dismissively, obviously agreeing and overlooking that last little bit. Then those sparkling eyes of hers flickered away, cast towards the coffin that had caused the entire problem to begin with, before sliding back to him. "Of course they are. But I like the clothing convention so…could you please hand me my shirt? I really want to kill this thing and I'd rather not be running away starkers in case it tries to bite back."
Harry could only stare.
A small part of him, one he hadn't wanted to acknowledge, had been afraid she'd hate him.
She hadn't.
She'd been scared, there was no hiding that, but she didn't hate him.
In fact, if he wasn't mistaken, she'd just agreed to marry him.
His fingers clenched in his dark hair and tugged, making sure he was actually awake. Kaylens was a gift, his gift. He'd thought he'd lost her, more than once, yet the universe, Merlin, the founders, Sirius, someone with a shred of freaking mercy had given her back to him each and every time, finally taking pity on the Boy-Who-Lived-and-Watched-Everyone-Else-Die.
And now here she was, before she'd ever watched him die, before she'd ever nearly lost him, before she'd found out about their war bond, before she'd been through every catalyst that had made him even consider asking her to begin with, telling him she'd say yes.
She would have said yes, even if he hadn't nearly died.
Blindly he reached backwards, groping for the discarded clothing for her. "Y-yeah," he croaked, faltering. His hand touched fabric, snaring it, only to find that the shirt in his hand was actually his. All it took was a brief glance at the still smoldering pile of clothing for Harry to realize that it hadn't been his shirt to have caught aflame.
It kind of figured actually. In the throes of what they'd been doing he'd had half a mind to ban her from wearing clothing for the rest of their natural lives. If he was going to accidentally set something on fire, it'd be her shirt.
Harry caught the semi-horrified look in her eyes as she realized he'd torched her shirt as they'd climaxed-
"Here," he said quickly, tossing it to her. His head still throbbed, but he stood, leaving her temporarily alone on the floor. Then he sent an angered look towards the coffin that had caused all of this. Then again, given how things were turning out he couldn't be quite that angry.
Harry choked down any thoughts of being grateful for the monumental levels they'd hit on the 'fucked up' scale tonight and scanned the mausoleum for her jacket. And his. They were somewhere in here…
He'd just finished re-buckling his pants when he caught sight of them behind another set of coffins. Harry had to half climb onto one, definitely disrespecting the dead in the process to reach hers – he was fairly certain he'd just earned himself an extra special place in several religions' hells - snaring and tossing it to her, dust flying. Harry didn't even comment when she instantly sneezed.
Harry had barely shrugged into his jacket, sweat still on his uncovered chest, it exposed to the open air when he realized that Kally hadn't moved. She still sat there, legs bent beneath her on the floor, topless and pulling the fabric of his shirt between her fingers, as if uncertain of everything.
A moment ago, when she'd been verbally kicking his ass, she'd seemed fine.
Hell, she'd seemed better than fine.
Now though…
Abruptly he remembered the beginning of the year, when she'd seemed cold, sarcastic, even when she'd been a sodding mess.
It occurred to him that she may have been doing the same thing now, for his sake.
Or the horcrux may have grabbed onto her again.
Shit.
Mentally he was on overload. He had to compartmentalize, do what Moody had taught him to do.
So he did.
The horcrux hadn't yet tried to blatantly kill them. It'd just urged him to choke Kaylens out, courtesy of Voldemort's sick and twisted version of ownership that he'd had for Hazel.
That meant, as long as he kept his Occlumency shields firmly in place, that he had time to tend to Kaylens, to try to fix this.
For once in his damn life he reckoned he wasn't doing the wrong thing.
Crouching down in front of her Harry eyed her for a moment, before he reached out, wrapping his fingers in his shirt. "Going to hex myself for this later," he muttered, "but how about you put this on before you freeze to death?" With that he gave it a tug, Kaylens simply sitting there and allowing him to.
He frowned, but methodically found the neck hole, shoving it over her head and giving it a pointed tug down. It now hung around her shoulders, too large to actually fit, sleeves flopping without substance.
"You know," he ventured, "typically arms go through the other holes. Not that I'd be protesting this if it was your new fashion statement, but Black might have a few choice words for it. Then there's that whole running around starkers thing. Just saying."
She sighed and slid her arms into the sleeves, his shirt falling down to her thighs. Had circumstances not been what they were Harry could have truthfully said it was one of the most enticing things he'd ever seen on her. He liked her wearing his clothing. It was a strange, possessive feeling, and part of him wondered if it was the horcrux or actually him that liked it.
"Kaylens," he muttered after a long silence, "please…I'm trying."
Champagne eyes flickered up, and just like that he saw the veil of uncertainty, of doubt, of insecurity lift for a brief second. "I know."
Harry didn't have a chance to think about what he did next.
Heedless of if she were jumpy, of if she would run, he had both hands were on either side of her face. Harry's head bowed against hers. "I love you," he promised, looking her steadily in the eyes. "Just you, and you have no clue how bad I've wanted to do this with you since you woke up. I didn't touch you, ask you to marry me because of the horcrux." Swallowing, he dryly added, "Just to get that part cleared up, in case you were thinking it. Need proof, if I didn't love you so damn much, Kaylens, I wouldn't have suggested you put a shirt back on." Releasing a rough breath, he wryly added, "Seriously luv, depriving myself of my favorite damn view in favor of your well-being. That true-freaking-love or wha-"
"Potter," she hissed, exasperated.
"Yeah?"
Her eyes had grown clearer, less uncertain, ghost of a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. "Shut up."
His own twitched back. "Gladly."
He had his mouth against hers in a shockingly gentle kiss, hands raking through her hair, her breath hitching against his lips. He kissed her, fingers tracing the top of her ears, then back in her hair on either side of her head. He wanted nothing more than to make her forget, to help her relax. "I promise," he whispered, tone raspier than he remembered, "only difference," speaking between kisses, "between this happening here or somewhere else," seizing her lips for a long, long moment, "is that I would have been a hell of a lot," hand sliding to her back, "more gentle with you tonight."
Finally he pulled back, eyes dark and burning as he looked at her, still caressing her hair, face, shoulders as if she were delicate porcelain ready to break.
She wasn't.
She was fixing him with an exasperated look that had him wanting to kiss her again. "Potter," she muttered, nudging her nose along his, "you're a sap, you know that?"
He pressed his mouth brutally to hers, muttering, "Guilty," before breaking away out of sheer concern for her safety. He breathed hard, sliding a hand to the back of her head as he practically pled, "Regardless…let's get out of here, find Black, then deal with the horcrux, alright? Think it's not just my head it's screwing with and I'd rather get away before it can get back into mine."
She closed her eyes, relaxing into his hand murmuring, "Think it's messing with our sense of time too…"
Harry frowned, confused, only to watch her open her eyes, her gaze pointedly flickering towards the windows.
Outside it was practically dark out.
Harry blinked, then blinked again to make sure he was seeing things right. When they'd first entered the crypt it'd been late afternoon. The sun had been bright and shining. Now it was evening; the cemetery was bound to be closed. They'd already been there for hours.
He'd thought it'd only been mere minutes, maybe an hour, at most.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, sounding like Ron. "Black's probably losing his shit."
"Either that or the gargoyles got him."
Harry tried not to look too happy at the prospect, failing and getting smacked on the arm. "What?" he said innocently, not sounding innocent at all, "was just thinking…should have brought Thomas with us. You know, so Black could have had some company. Not so he'd get mauled too…"
"Potter!"
He snorted, reality settling in again. His hand slowly tensed in her hair, realizing that they were alone, in a cemetery you could not apparate in or out of, that was patrolled by two gargoyles that'd he'd been assured lacked senses of humor, and that they'd have to walk out of. "We're going to get mauled."
"Probably," she agreed, amicably enough considering their looming demise. She wet her lips. "No offense though Potter, but…I'll take gargoyles over whatever the horcrux might try to do to you by morning."
Harry grimaced. "Me too." Occlumency only went so far. "We need to go," he muttered, pulling away with some reluctance, watching as Kaylens quickly nodded her agreement, pulling on her coat and flipping her hair out from under it. Her hair, usually sleek and long, looked almost wavy from the tangled mess he'd created of it.
Despite the situation they were in Harry couldn't help it; he smirked.
Spotting his expression she drug a hand through her hair, eyeing him in frustration, Harry offering her a non-apologetic shrug. "Well?" she asked.
"Well what?"
"Do I look like…well like we were just…" she trailed off, expression growing more exasperated, Harry realizing what she meant.
"Ah, Black. Yeah, um…" Harry drug a hand through his own hair in a vain attempt to flatten it, failing. "Think my lack of shirt might have sailed that ship for us…"
Kally made a whimpering, defeated sound. "He's going to castrate you."
"No," he replied distractedly, turning in place and searching the crypt again, "that would be Lupin. Black'll just tell Lupin." Then the bastard would sit back and enjoy the show, scotch in hand.
Fortunately his eyes fell on a hat, her hat.
Without thinking it'd been wordlessly summoned to his hand, Harry extending it to her, Kally taking it cautiously. Her eyes never left him even as she pulled it back on her head. "Your magic's coming back."
"Good," he replied, casting a wary glance at the coffin. "Because we're going to need."
"To fend off Black or for Riddle's newest trinket?"
"Both," he snorted. "Don't forget that trivial matter where we might get mauled walking out."
Kally hissed. "Sometimes I really hate Voldemort."
He quirked a brow. "Only sometimes?"
Her eyes snapped to him. "All the time, just right now my fantasies of harming him are particularly vivid and involve scooping his internal organs out with a spoon."
He quirked an eyebrow. "Dare I ask but…why a spoon?"
"It's more blunt than a knife, so ought to hurt more."
Once more he wondered if she had any idea how terrifying she was. Kaylens casual violence was strangely attractive, and he found himself studying her, seriously wondering how he'd gotten so lucky. She wasn't scared of Voldemort or Riddle's names. Hell, she wasn't scared of Riddle himself. He'd seen it, with his own eyes.
Then again, maybe it wasn't that she wasn't scared; it was just that the part of her brain in charge of trivial, inconsequential things like survival reflexes failed to function. He could see that being the case. It'd certainly explain the jumping in shark infested waters incident.
No, make that incidents. Emphasis on the s.
He pulled his thoughts back to the here and now. Looking at her, his jumper down to her thighs and fully visible beneath Ariana's coat, even though she'd buttoned it fully, he couldn't help but smirk. "Even if Black didn't figure out that I was shirtless under this thing, your shirt's definitely going to give it away."
Kaylens eyes flew down to it, the non-witch cursing a word that would have had Hermione sticking her in detention trophy polishing for at least two nights. She still sat on the ground, legs folded beneath her, and Harry found everything about that impossibly alluring.
They needed to get out of this crypt before he jumped her again, or worse.
Abruptly he reached down, snaring her by both wrists, tugging her up in one quick motion. She smacked against his chest, squeaking, but Harry didn't comment. He'd have to do that later. For now, now that he was thinking logically and his blood flow had been re-directed to his correct head, he knew they needed to get out of here.
The longer they stayed, the more the horcrux would sink its insidious claws into them both. He'd turn more and more violent, possessive, angry and eventually try to harm her again. And Kaylens, despite showing sparks of who she normally was, would become so insecure and submissive she'd not even try to stop him.
Harry's hand slid to her back, keeping her to him as he grabbed the door's handle, giving it a shove.
It didn't budge.
Harry frowned and tried again.
Nothing.
Kaylens sucked in a breath, realizing the problem.
Harry slowly let her go, the non-witch intuitively easing back as he shoved both his hands against the door, planting his feet, shoving with all he had.
It didn't move.
In fact, the handle appeared to be glowing.
Harry took one look at the handle, slow dawning realization slithering through him. He hadn't even finished turning back around to face Kally when she'd spoken, tone flat, hand already rifling through her hair.
"We're trapped, aren't we?"
