Written for:
Hogwarts Writing Club: 100 Prompts: creative, friendly, fun, left, married, obviously, official, ordinary, other, pair, perfect, physical, pregnant, pretty, public, purple, raw, right, same, silly, similar, simple, slow, standard, childish, united, willing, wonderful, young, red, whereas, okay, attach, attend, call, burn, consist, dance, direct, ease, draw, enable, express, guard, highlight, juice, like, necking, occur, owe, peak, pick, prefer, provide, push, worry, won, were, watch, walk, wake, view, beach, breast, card, chain, chemistry, chip, clothes, craft, cream, dish, dresser, foot, fudge, gap, horse, ice, island, jungle, knee, leg, meal, menu, mouth, neck, paint, passage, piece, poem, poppy, skin, male, thinker, engineer, passenger, supporter, son, weather, week
February Event at Hogwarts: (dialogue) "You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight and you'll shad and you'll hate each other until it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends." and (colour) magenta
If You Dare Challenge: 798. Made to be Broken
Valentine-Making Station: Write an M-rated love scene.
200 Characters in 200 Days: Emmeline Vance
Gringotts Prompt Bank: (colours) magenta, purple, grey, (said words) drawled, demanded, taunted, snickered, spat, stated, conceded, (prepositions) inside, opposite (family and friends vocabulary) daughter, father, (emotions and feelings) hateful
Words: 1797
AN: The title is taken from a song by Jeremy Messersmith.
Warnings: Explicit Language, Explicit Scenes. For Mature Audiences.

Easy Lovers, Hardly Friends

Regulus watched her in History of Magic. She was leaning on her hand, staring out of the window at the view of the Forbidden Forest. There was a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth, like some silly thought had captured her attention. She was no longer on the same plane of reality as the rest of the class, but in some ethereal world of her own creation. He was still watching her when she looked down at her paper and began to draw. He was jealous of the ease with which her hand controlled the quill, gliding it softly against the paper. She honed her craft wherever she could. He'd seen her with paint out in the grounds sprawled on the grass; with a pencil at breakfast over a dish of cornflakes; and here she was with her quill and ink in class. He couldn't see clearly enough what she was drawing, but by Merlin he wanted to know. Somehow, it felt imperative that he find out. When the drawing was complete, she dipped her quill with its magenta feathers back into the ink and began to write. Regulus couldn't read the words, but he thought it was something – maybe some passage or a poem – that accompanied the sketch. She put down her quill and stepped back, admiring the finished piece.

When the bell rang, he snapped back to reality. His eyes left her and focused instead on his own things as he stuffed them into his bag. Anger and frustration began to make their way around his system as he realised he'd wasted time, been distracted, lost his train of thought on Emmeline Vance again, and in public no less. He didn't understand what captivated him about her. She was pretty, sure, in her own way, with her long straight blonde locks and dainty features. She was creative, often lost in a daydream, and she had conviction. None of that explained it. She shouldn't have captured his eye. She was a Ravenclaw; she was a muggleborn; and she hated him.

He'd seen her friendly side, from a distance, and he knew she had it in her to be kind and generous. But whenever they'd had to work together, or they'd struck up conversation, she'd spoken with such venom in her words, such hatred, that the arguments between them had flown as easily as breathing.

He stood and began to leave the room, trying to look as ordinary as possible for him in the hopes of not drawing attention. He began to walk down the corridor, but didn't get far. A hand came from the right, from behind a tapestry, to grab his collar and tie and yank him inside. Suddenly, he was inches away from her, and she was staring at him with hard eyes, her foot tapping on the stone floor, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"It must be my lucky day," Regulus drawled, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He knew it was childish of him, but he had to stand by the persona he'd built for himself.

"You're officially the creepiest fucker in this school! Why were you staring at me all lesson?" she demanded.

"I thought it'd be fun to fuck with you," he taunted, rolling his eyes.

"You've got a smart arse response to everything, don't you?" she quipped. "Tell me the truth."

She was asking for him to be direct, but that wasn't Regulus' way. "There is no truth! I wasn't staring at anything, I zoned out. I was half asleep, you idiot!"

"Yeah, okay, sure. Things are just that simple," she snickered, incredulous.

"What do you want me to say? I was staring at you all lesson because I obviously think you're perfect and fancy the pants off you, I just don't know how to express my devotion!" Regulus spat. "I'd rather gauge out my eyeballs and burn them for good measure."

"Please do, I'd love to watch!"

The pair were staring at each other, hearts racing, breathless as hate turned into a raw energy. Suddenly, fingers were tugging at clothes as mouths came together like they'd been pushed by some invisible force. Regulus' lips moved to her neck, his teeth nipping at her skin, while her fingers were working the buttons of his shirt. They had hated each other for years, but today they were willing to sacrifice their bodies to this dance.

His hand traced the curve of her behind, trailing down lower, onto her bare leg beneath her skirt. He reached down, to the back of her knee, and pulled her leg up wrapping it around his hip, pulling her core closer to his as he moved forwards, pushing her against the wall. She leant back, drawing away from him just a little, and began to undo her own shirt, a simple and slow action that caught Regulus entirely off guard, encouraging his desire. The shirt fell to the floor and Regulus watched intently as she unhooked her purple bra and let it fall. His spare hand was on her breast immediately, his head dipping a little to worship the other. It was chemistry; it was a chain reaction; it was a physical need. Her deep red lips opened into a moan, her eyes drifted to a close, as his hand attended to her core, feeling her wetness as he found her spot.

She continued to undress him, exposing him to her before she wrapped both her legs around his waist, attaching herself to him, trying to provide him easy access. Regulus felt like the cat that had got the cream when he pushed his way in. it didn't take long for either of them to reach their peak. He collapsed in on her, leaning his arm against the wall behind her, and held them both in place for a short, wonderful moment. He pulled out slowly, her juices all over him.

"If you've gotten me pregnant, I swear on Merlin's grave, you'll pay," she stated.

Regulus said nothing as he found his clothes and pulled out his wand, muttering a contraceptive spell.

"Why am I not surprised you know that spell?" she asked with a sneer.

"Do you want me to tell you I'll call for the sake of societal standards or do you want me to actually call?" Regulus asked, similarly bitter.

"Burn in hell, Black," she bit back.

It was less than a week later when they found themselves in the same situation again, necking in a broom closet. They were trying to navigate the jungle of teenage emotions and somehow picked each other to let loose their tensions on. They were young, and foolish, and as much as they tried to listen to their hearts, they didn't yet know its language.

The third time it occurred, Regulus began to wonder, whereas Emmeline was happy to continue the way they had been.

"What are we doing?" he asked as he searched for his clothes, handing over her skirt.

"I prefer you when you're using your mouth for things other than talking," she responded.

"I'm being serious. Do we hate each other or are we just pretending because it's easier?"

"You're way too much of a thinker," she complained.

Regulus sighed.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" she asked. "Do you want to get married? Do you want to ride wild horses on the beach on some desert island on our honeymoon? Wake up, Regulus. Real life doesn't always make sense."

"You just called me Regulus," he highlighted. It was the first time she'd ever addressed him by his first name. For some absurd reason, it felt to Regulus like somehow, he'd just won.

It was a month later when her friends found out. Regulus expected to have abuse thrown at him from every Ravenclaw in school, and he was waiting for it to spread around the Gryffindors, too. He knew his brother would have a field day over that one. But nothing came. There were no comments about how he was a typical male after whatever he could get. He was almost sick with worry, and nothing happened. He couldn't be sure if it was Emmeline or her friends who made the decision, but all the same, the situation enabled him with a new perspective. Regulus began to wonder if maybe he had a supporter or two.

The two high school dropouts were lying in her bed, under a duvet decorated with a large, single poppy. They were on opposite sides of the war now, and they still hated each other in the day time – or, at least, they hated what the other stood for. But in the night… in the night it was almost love.

Emmeline was looking at a menu as she nibbled on a piece of fudge – she was going out with friends for a meal that night. Regulus was staring at the ice in the bottom of his glass, watching it melt. There was a gap between them as they lay there, not touching, but neither wanted to leave. They knew they were just passengers in each other's lives, passing through on their way to other destinations.

Regulus looked around the room with a sigh, his eyes landing on the items on her dresser. "What's that card?" he asked.

Emmeline smiled. "It's from an old friend. I told her I was scared. Scared I was falling in love with a man I wasn't even friends with. She put it into perspective for me."

"What did she say?" he asked.

"She said, 'You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight and you'll shag and you'll hate each other until it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends,'" Emmeline informed him.

"That makes it sound like this is going to end horribly," Regulus commented.

"Isn't it?"

Regulus conceded. "Probably. I think we were made to be broken."

He looked away from her, out of the window at the grey weather. He supposed he owed it to both of them to be honest.

"You're your mother's son, through and through. And I'm my father's daughter. I always will be. Those things weren't meant to go together. They never will."

"Then why do we both keep coming back?" Regulus asked, looking back at her.

"I think it's because we both want to engineer our own fates. But we can't. We don't have that luxury. So much of our lives was laid out for us before we were even born. As much as we want to control things, we can't. We're too invested in our own worlds."

"I think you're right. I think we'd both die for our beliefs. I don't think we'd do the same for each other."