Room of Requirement

March 24, 1944

"Try moving your hand in more of a semi-circle," he told her.

She gave him a look of exasperation. "But I hit the target!"

"Do you want to learn to haphazardly throw curses or duel?" he asked her pointedly.

Rose sighed in frustration. "…I want to learn to duel," she replied begrudgingly. He was right; Tom was always right. Clearly he knew that her perfectionism would get the best of her and she would have wished she learned it right the first time anyway. Still, her desire to become better at dueling was hindered with a feeling of hopelessness. Tom was a wonderful teacher, but she was genuinely terrible at everything they tried and it made her quite insecure to show him this weakness in her magical ability. At least he was patient; significantly more so than she had anticipated, in fact.

For the past three Fridays, they had spent the afternoon in the Room of Requirement practicing her technique. He had even convinced her to begin coming to Dueling Club to observe after they finished for the evening, promising that he would make sure that she was never put on the spot and forced into a match. Admittedly, it was much more enjoyable to watch him teach others; it always gave her such pride to see him in such a mentoring role with their peers.

Tom conjured a new target and gave her a small, encouraging smile. Rose raised her wand and fired another spell across the room. This time it missed the target entirely, ricocheting off of the various objects around them. They ducked down quickly until the spell hit an armchair in the corner and caused it to burst into flames. He stood, one corner of his mouth twitching in a clear attempt to keep a straight face, and muttered an extinguishing spell.

"This is hopeless!" she cried in defeat. "I give up, I cannot do this!"

Any hint of a smile disappeared from his face as he walked over to her. "You're not giving up," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Why?" she whined. "Let's just go to the library or take a walk around the lake!"

"You're not giving up," he repeated. "Would you like to know why? You're Rosemary Horton and you are the most clever, tenacious person I've ever met. You settle for nothing inferior to your best effort. And you should know that I won't settle for anything inferior to your best effort either."

Why did he say these things to her, forcing her heart to flutter so mercilessly? Rose reflected on the fact that she was so lucky to have him and finally gave him a small smile.

"That's it," he said. He spun her around so she was facing the target once more. She raised her wand and this time he stood close behind her, leaning down so his lips were next to her ear. He ran his hand down her extended arm and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. She let him guide her hand in a very slight circle. "There. You see?"

Rose nodded. He removed his hand from her and stepped back, careful not to disturb her form. She replicated the precise motion he had shown her and fired the spell; this time, she hit the target square in the chest. She spun around and beamed at him and he was smiling proudly back at her.

"Excellent!" he said. "Let's do it again."

He conjured a few more targets and eventually progressed to a moving version. She focused on one at a time, taking out each one by employing the small wrist movement he had shown her.

"Pretty soon you'll be showing off to the dueling club," Tom smirked, shaking his head slightly.

Rose lowered her wand and said modestly, "I don't know about that." Sure, she was quite proud of her own progress, but she didn't deem herself anywhere near prepared enough to perform in front of his seasoned club members.

"Well you're catching on quite quickly."

Rose smiled and strode over to him, tossing her arms around his neck and pulling their bodies close together. "That's just because I have such a good teacher." They stood like that for a moment; meanwhile, her thoughts strayed from dueling and became increasingly physical in nature. "I think that was a good note to end on, don't you?"

He gave a small shrug. "It's up to you. We have well over two hours before Dueling Club begins."

She brought her face close enough to his that their lips brushed together as she spoke: "I can think of a few things we can do in a couple of hours. It's not as though we have to worry about any disturbances here." She wondered briefly why neither of them had thought to suggest the room as a snogging location before.

"Quite right." His hands squeezed her hips as he pressed his mouth against hers. She kissed him back hungrily and he pushed her backwards onto an old, decrepit couch that emitted a puff of dust as she sat. Tom kept kissing her, appearing not to notice.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a spider crawl up from one of the cushions; she hastily pushed him off of her and leapt away. Rose had been afraid of spiders ever since she was five; Markus used to make her watch as he picked the legs off of them. She remembered their unpleasant writhing vividly.

Tom gave her a puzzled look and she merely pointed to the tiny, black creature scampering across the frayed fabric. "You're afraid of that?"

"I had a few bad experiences as a child," she said defensively, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You are full of surprises, Rosemary Horton." He gave her an amused smirk.

"Let's find a piece of furniture that isn't ancient and infested with bugs." Rose took his hand and led him around the vast room, searching for a chair or couch that would be a bit more romantic.

Finally, she spotted a reasonably decent-looking chair. "You first," she said, pushing him down onto it.

"Afraid there will be another spider?" he teased, pulling her so that she was standing between his legs.

"Perhaps. At least this way it will have to crawl all over you first before it gets to me."

Tom smirked. "Well, aren't you thoughtful..." His fingers traveled up the back of her legs and came to rest where her skin met her thigh-high stockings. Rose smiled before leaning down a bit to kiss him.

She loved snogging him so very much. Every time she saw him, she was struck with the same feeling of disbelief: how had she never thought of him physically until this year? She couldn't think of a single part of him that wasn't attractive. Even his posture made her want him. Their Charms class was especially torturous; not because of the subject matter, but because their assigned seats made it so she sat directly behind him. Rose was forced to admire his handsome shoulders and dark hair all class, forbidden to act on any of her desires. The class had been nearly unbearable before they confessed their feelings for each other; at least now she could have her hands on him whenever she liked when they were outside the classroom.

Tom kissed her hungrily and intertwined his tongue with hers. She pushed him against the back of the chair and climbed on top of him, straddling herself over his legs. Rose made a mental note that he seemed to enjoy the position, judging from the way he met her lips with even more passion and let his hands roam beneath her skirt. He reached behind her with one hand, lightly tracing the spot between her legs with his fingers.

She felt him touch her ankle so lightly that she could barely feel it. "That tickles."

"This?" He touched her between her legs once more.

"No, no…on my-" She turned to look at her ankle and screamed: "Oh, Merlin! Get it off me! Get it off me!" There was an alarmingly large spider that had progressed to her calf. He quickly brushed it off of her and she hopped off the chair shaking out her hair and clothes. "Ugh! I feel like they're all over me!"

"Stop moving for a moment-"

Rose saw his eyes travel down to her jumper and she immediately began scrambling to get it off her. "Shit! Is there another one?! Don't just sit there, do something!" She glanced up with a helpless, panicked look to see that he was still sitting there coolly, now with a smirk spread across his face. Her mouth fell open as she realized he had tricked her. "I can't believe you would do that," she huffed, pulling her jumper back over her head.

He simply laughed, which did not improve her mood in the slightest, and strode over to her, putting a piece of her disheveled hair back into place. She smacked his hand away and glared up at him. "I'm sorry," he told her, even though he was still smiling. "That was cruel of me."

She said nothing and continued to scowl.

"Want to try and find another piece of furniture?" he teased. "Third time's the charm…"

"No. In fact, I think it would be best if I return to my dormitory for the day." She crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at him defiantly.

"Really?" He stepped closer and bent his neck so he could whisper in her ear. His voice was cocky and arrogant and she loved it. His confidence was one of the most attractive things about him. "You see, I thought it might be rather enjoyable to see what other forms the Room of Requirement had to offer."

If she were any less vulnerable to his allure, her willpower may have won. Rose looked up at him and softened her glare a bit in response to his suggestion. He seemed to register her answer almost immediately, smiling in satisfaction, and leading her out of the room.

She waited in the corridor, keeping watch for any passersby. Tom walked back and forth in front of the wall three times before the door reappeared. He took her hand and led her aside; she couldn't help but be impressed by what she witnessed. In a display of its sublime magic, the room had shifted to seductively dim lighting and featured piles and piles of pillows and blankets that were scattered about for their apparent choosing. A large bed was in the middle of the room and it looked significantly finer than any of the furniture she had seen in the previous version of the Room of Requirement. Suddenly, she seemed to forget all about her agitation with him.

"Come." Tom extended his hand toward her and she took it. He led her to the bed, past the giant mounds of pillows and blankets. Before he kissed her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and said, "I hope you find this suitable."

"Certainly. What exactly did you request?"

"I requested a place that would impress my lovely companion; where nothing would disturb us." He paused and a smirk spread across his face. "Including spiders."

Tom watched her eyes as they seemed to dance with happiness at his words. It made him feel tremendously content to know that she was satisfied. She allowed a small laugh to escape her lips and he yearned for a way to capture the heavenly sound, to play it again and again whenever he pleased. He sat on the bed and kissed her, pulling her so she was standing between his legs once more. She playfully bit his bottom lip and a wonderful shiver traveled down his spine in response. His fingers inched themselves beneath the hem of her skirt, feeling the warm flesh of her legs.

Their kissing grew increasingly passionate and Rose pushed him onto his back, removing her jumper before climbing on top of him. She pressed herself against him in a way that was addictively torturous. Once again, he would have to force himself to neglect his intrinsic urges for her. It was rather inconvenient that everything she did seemed to be a direct challenge to his resolve. He could allow losing himself in her affections for only moments at a time.

Tom closed his eyes and ran his hands up and down her shirtless back, admiring the smoothness of her skin. She kissed his face and neck and before he knew it, he too was without a shirt. Her delicate fingers slid over his chest; they seemed to leave microscopic tingles in their wake. Rose's hips gyrated in a rhythm against his and it required all of his remaining willpower to keep himself from flipping her over and pinning her down as he had his way with her. As the days passed, it was becoming harder and harder for him to wait. He longed to be as close to her as he possibly could.

But the passing time had also forced him to uncover additional reasons not to take things further. Lestrange's comments weeks before had reminded him that she had already slept with Avery. It was a fact that he could not seem to shake; it lurked in the back of his mind at all times when he was with her. Slowly, he had remembered the remarks Avery used to make to Lestrange, bragging about her exceptional prowess. Knowing that she had been with someone else made him sick; remembering the explicit details as they were told by Avery was even worse. Not to mention the fact that all of Hogwarts surely knew about her lack of sexual purity as well.

He felt foolish that none of this had occurred to him while he was in the process of falling for her. Perhaps it was simply that he had underestimated the potential depth of his feelings. Now he knew that he desired her in the most intimate of ways: he wanted to possess her, to make her undeniably and irrevocably his. It was difficult to reconcile that because of her past, this could never be: she could never be entirely his if she had shared such an intimate connection with another.

Even with all this weighing on his mind, he still couldn't keep himself from exploring her. She was his temptress, luring him closer and closer with their unyielding attraction. It was as though every atom of his body could find a match with hers. Tom looked into her blue eyes, drowning his worrisome thoughts in them before running his hands through her hair and kissing her forcefully. When the kiss broke, they were both breathing heavily. His desire to take control of her was beginning to take over; he flipped her over and moved her toward the top of the bed so her head was resting on the pillows. Tom's body hovered above hers for a moment. Although they weren't touching, he could feel the heat radiate from her skin. He rested there for a moment, attempting to decide which part of her he would touch first as she looked up at him eagerly.

It was quite attractive to see the longing on her face, the lustful gaze that begged him to touch her most forbidden areas. He frequently thought that he might enjoy forcing her to verbally plead for it and withhold his touch until her words satisfied him. But it would have to wait for another time; he had far too little self-control to even attempt such a feat at the moment.

Tom allowed his hand to glide down her body and trace the wet spot that had formed in her knickers. It was a mistake to feel her there: the willpower preventing himself from relishing her was diminishing rapidly. She let out one of her delicious moans and gave him a mischievous smirk.

Before he could ponder the cause of the smirk, she was unbuttoning his trousers and reaching into them. He could have stopped her. In fact, he was going to – until her fingers gently stroked his member for the first time. Tom breathed in sharply and looked at her, still smirking back up at him. Then she sat up and pulled on the waist of his trousers, indicating that she wanted him to slide them off.

He stood and obeyed her. For the first time, he was entirely naked in front of her. She looked him up and down and he felt self-conscious for a moment, but the way she bit her lip and smiled seductively at him in response reassured him. Then she followed suit, sliding off her skirt and undergarments. Rose took his hand and pulled him back on the bed. He laid on his back and she sidled up to his body, lying on her side to face him. She began by trailing his lips along his jaw and neck.

Was this the moment, the time he had been waiting for? Would they finally give each other themselves in this way? Thankfully, his mind was now entirely blank of thoughts of her with Avery. He closed his eyes and waited for her to press her opening down on top of him, but the time never came. Instead, her hand traveled slowly down his stomach, moving further and further toward his basically throbbing member. Finally, she wrapped her hand around it and began stroking him up and down. Her touch was by far the strongest sensation he had ever felt in the area; it significantly bypassed his own previous efforts to satisfy his cravings for her. He emitted a low groan which seemed only to encourage her. She moved her hand faster and it drove him mad with pleasure. He wanted to reach down and play with her in return, but felt as though he had been rendered immobile for the time being.

Rose kissed him, slithering her tongue into his mouth. It was all quite a bit for him to handle and he felt himself begin to grow close to his climax already. He felt as though she had only been touching him for a couple of minutes at most, but he had lost track of time entirely. He tried to pull himself back, attempting to fill his mind with thoughts that might discourage his release, but he could think of nothing but Rose and everything he was feeling.

He simply couldn't take it anymore; he gave into the inevitable climax that she had caused, feeling it spread across his body. A feeling of complete calm filled his head and he finally opened his eyes to see her smiling back at him. She kissed his cheek before standing to retrieve a nearby blanket, dabbing the bed around them to clean up. As he watched her naked body, he thought he should thank her, but every part of him felt heavy and lethargic, as though it would take a day's worth of effort to part his lips and speak two words. Rose climbed back into the bed beside him and rested her pretty head on her hand. A small smile in her direction was all he could seem to manage at the moment.

Thankfully, she was the first to speak: "Did you like it?"

He was surprised at the way she had asked: modestly, as though she was truly unsure. Tom didn't understand how this could be; after all, it was he that had been so worried he had in some way disappointed her by finishing too early. "Certainly," he turned on his side to face her and kissed her forehead. "Couldn't you tell?"

She laughed and it was the first time he had seen her laugh so nervously. "I suppose." She paused before continuing. "I just wanted to make sure because I've never gone that far with anyone before."

It took a few moments for her words to sink in; if they were true, then she hadn't done nearly as much with Avery as he had indicated and all of Tom's worries were null. "You haven't?" he asked.

Apparently, she had somehow guessed his train of thought. "No…Markus and I only ever snogged, nothing more."

Tom was hit with a few waves of emotions: first disbelief, then relief, then anger at Avery for bragging about his nonexistent escapades. "I see," he stammered, attempting to recover from the initial shock of her confession.

"I apologize; I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable by saying anything. I suppose I just wanted you to know."

He seemed to regain his composure and tried to reassure her. "I do hope you'll trust that I am most certainly not disappointed in this news. Quite the opposite, really."

She gave him a small smile, but still looked as though she wished to say something.

Tom touched her cheek softly. "Is something bothering you?"

"Well, I was just wondering if you've gone this far before?" He had never heard her sound quite so nervous.

It took him a moment to respond, simply because the possibility that she might wonder the same about him had never crossed his mind. "No," he assured her.

She looked enormously relieved. Tom rested his head on the pillow beneath it, allowing everything to sink in once more. He had spent so much time worrying about her apparent breadth of experience and his lack thereof. "I didn't bring this up before because I didn't want to rush into things," she continued.

He nodded at her, feeling closer with her than ever before. They were finally on the same page entirely and it felt quite wonderful. Unfortunately, this happy moment with Rose was short-lived; she had glanced at the nearby clock and told him he only had twenty minutes before Dueling Club began. Rose stood and began to dress; finally, he joined her, sliding on his clothes and wishing he could have spent the entire day in bed with their naked bodies pressed against each other.

They arrived hand-in-hand in the Great Hall, where the majority of the club had already gathered. Fortunately, Antonin Dolohov– a Slytherin that was a year younger and served as second in command of Dueling Club– had taken it upon himself to set up the tables. Rose released his hand and he walked to the front of the crowd, waiting for a few last students to trickle in.

"Good afternoon," he greeted them all. "Today we'll be working on a few new offensive spells. I'll demonstrate with…" Tom scanned the room, choosing the sorry bloke he would most enjoy firing spells at. He had to get his anger out somehow and his role as Captain of the Dueling Club certainly allowed him to indulge these impulses from time to time; it was one of the best perks of the position. His eyes rested on Avery; he was reminded of the truth Rose had just revealed and how angry it had made him at his fellow Slytherin. Tom felt his anger boiling within him, thrashing eagerly for the manifestation that was soon to come. "...Avery," he said coolly.

"Thou art to me a delicious torment." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hey everyone! I'm sorry if there are some typos in this chapter; my computer screen is all sorts of messed up and I have to wait a few days to get it replaced. :/

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I've been trying to make the chapters a bit longer while also trying to churn out new chapters relatively quickly. Any thoughts on that? What's more important: frequent updates or longer chapters?

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