Damn that woman. Damn her and all that she was.

Her strawberry essence still filled his nostrils, lingered there and left a permanent imprint on his brain, making itself at home. He walked back in forth in front of the cabinet before him. To hell with her doe eyes that promised safety, her soft touch that left the stubble on his check standing. The promise that there was more than just this dark and damp room out there.

He wanted to hate her.

He wanted to hate how the blood left his extremities in her presence. How the world followed her like some bloody golden light.

He couldn't hate her though. Not when she was there and even now when she was away. When the very thing he was working on at the moment would send her running to the hills. She would want nothing to do with him when she found out what he was doing. It was not in her nature to stay around the evil, she would purge it, put an end to his task and move on. Leave him in the dark.

Yet she hadn't run, she knew a piece of it and she didn't run.

Maddening.

He slammed the cabinet door closed with all the force he could, an audible noise leaving his chest. He was still nowhere on anything. The letter he had sent to Borgin was met with a response to bring the cabinet to the store. He had found joy in burning that letter piece by piece.

He had switched to his second task in the meantime. Leaving a very peculiar bottle of mead with Rosmerta as well as instructions. Surely someone would be willing to take it to the headmaster, leaving him and any more students unharmed, god willing no one else tried to sample the damned thing. He had tried to accomplish something that would never make her look at him with such shame again. It would be inevitable that she would figure it out when the old man was dead, wishful thinking that she would see the steps he took for her.

For her.

He wanted to gag. This was not how any part of his life should go. He should never be thinking about her like this, wanting her to appreciate his effort. It was maddening. He needed to go back to ignoring her, yelling at her, whatever made her go away from him. His heart dropped in his chest at the thought. He would need her, the good she offered was like a drug to him. Damn her.

He needed sleep, a shower to remove the remainder of her scent from around him and sleep.

Slowly she walked down the corridors listening to the clicking of her shoes on the stone floor. They matched the hurried beating of her heart, the lack of sleep she had received last night was obviously messing with her brain but she needed to do this.

Force his hand.

She would make him either push her away or allow her in. Stop hiding in the library, screaming at each other by the restricted section.

If she could bring their, friendship, she had to laugh at that. Friends was not even close to the what they were. Inconvenience of a life time was more like it. There was nothing convenient about the way she felt when she thought about last night. He had pressed his lips to her head and she was hit with the overwhelming smell of apples. She was not stupid she knew what that meant, she had smelled it in her dreams many times growing up and that day in class, and that scared her.

The smartest witch of their age, yet she couldn't escape the pull of some silly potion. The smells coming off of him were all she had thought about growing up, she was to naïve to see that the person was so close to her all these years. Yet now that she knew, he was so incredibly far away.

He has to kill someone.

She shook her head as she entered the great hall, removing all thoughts from her mind. If this was going to work in any capacity she needed to stop thinking that way and start thinking of how to stop him. She needed to force him to bring whatever was inevitably coming into the open a bit more.

There were only a handful of students that would be staying the winter break, none that she could even name. It was the perfect time to test the waters on him, there was no one who would say anything about it.

She kept her head down as she walked through the door. It was only breakfast, and chances where he wouldn't even be in there so why was she so worked up over it? Steading herself, she raised her head and looked at those sitting in the room. Most were sitting at the Ravenclaw table, It was an easy table to fit into, directly in the middle, yet she scanned towards her left and saw him sitting alone. The only Slytherin to stay.

He could be stunning in a different world, maybe a different life. Maybe had the world been different she could have always had this feeling that was pulling in her gut, forcing her hand in a way she wasn't even sure she fully wanted yet. But this was not the world of maybes. As she looked at him she could tell he hadn't slept, the circles under his eyes were almost black and his normally pushed back hair fell into his eyes. This was a mistake. There was no way any amount of publicity would fix this, someone would tell someone, the two of them weren't exactly unknown. Yet her feet carried her forwards of their own accord and she found herself quickly sitting next to him as his shoulders stiffened.

"What are you doing" he mumbled under his breath watching the students at the other table, no one had paid her any mind.

"I wonder, does Dumbledore usually leave for break or stay? I always figured he would be one of the few to be around during breaks." She grabbed a muffin off his plate and turned the coffee cup right side up, watching as it filled with the soothing brown liquid.

"Does it matter?" he asked her taking the muffin from her hand and taking a sip of his tea. "What are you doing Granger?" He cast her a warning look and she shrugged her shoulders.

"They're all first years and no one from our classes. I didn't think it would matter?" she was questioning herself as she stirred cream into the coffee and grabbed for another plate. "Do I need to leave?" He shook his head no in response and stared out ahead of him. He was stiff and the silence was maddening. Finally, someone at another table laughed and the shrill of it broke through him, she saw his shoulders roll and neck pull to the side.

"Did you have dreams again? You look like you haven't slept." He laughed then, a small laugh and she placed her coffee down scooting a bit closer, waiting for him to lead.

"Oh yes Granger, I dreamed."

"Another nightmare then?" she didn't understand why he was being so coy. She understood his nightmares were…vivid. He had explained that much before. His lip curled up slightly as he glared into the distance.

"Yes and no." She picked up a piece of fruit and examined it closely. "You were there." The strawberry fell from her hand as his words struck her. They both knew his dreams were not safe.

A.N. Please review! I love hearing from you.