Rosalie Prewett has always considered Garreth Weasley to be a gentleman. A well-respected man in their community and a sought-after bachelor, it seemed as the years had been kind to the boy he had known back in school.
He has always been polite to her. Respectful, even if not exactly courteous, his face holding an easy smile and his tone is perfectly proper, neighbourly, as one address the widow of an old friend. He had the habit of opening doors for her and offering her a free drink at his tavern.
Non-alcoholic, naturally, as he could not be seen coercing anybody, nor could she be seen indulging in vices.
As her only son sets out to Hogwarts for his First Year, the woman finds herself with a wealth of time and little disposition to hang around the house with idle thoughts. Leander would always tease her about the things they would do when the new-born was finally shipped away to boarding school, and it hurts her heart to think that her deceased husband did not have the chance to even see him take his first step, taken by a poacher raid gone wrong.
So, Rosalie gets around doing the same thing she has done when she was young and lost. She started walking around the region, meeting people in the nearby villages and hamlets, trying to solve problems with her magic. Fortunately for her, there were problems aplenty, with a war raging on the continent and most Muggle men, and some wizards, off fighting in France.
It was one of these days when she had found herself stranded in a sudden lightning storm close to the Burrow. She had not thought for one moment there would be any danger in knocking on the door of the large and crooked house and asking if she may wait it out.
"Of course, you can." Garreth had said, the very corners of his mouth turning up, his tone warm. "Stay the night, please. I could not forgive myself if something were to happen to you while traversing these roads. They will be waterlogged for days."
It was rather late, past seven o'clock. He was serving dinner for one at his home, and even through the loneliness, he still managed to put a full table with plenty of food, as if he was waiting for visitors to come by,
Having found herself lulled into a false sense of security by the glorious weather when she had set out from Devon, she had no retinue with her and no provisions for anything longer than a meandering walk.
Her only resource was her wand, but she locked her Floo before leaving, as she intended to stop by her parents' home in Scilly for a few days and did not want to take any risks for security. She would have to walk from the post office to her house on her way back, and under torrential storms, that is bound to be dangerous, even with magic.
In that situation, she had been only too happy to take up the offer. It had been a civil, polite affair. The owner and sole inhabitant of the house and his guest, warming themselves by the fire, polite questions about the wellbeing of her family and how her son was settling up in Scotland, a compliment on the way the colour of her clothing today, and her hair and her eye…
Of course, she knows that the man is not often prone to compliments, and perhaps she had preened a little at the sweet words from him. As the years passed and the loneliness set in, she had imagined what it would be like to be the betrothed and adored of the most eligible bachelor in Ottery St. Catchpole.
However, that was all it had been.
Imagination.
Rosalie did not mean for anything to ever happen between them, or even any other man. She had loved Leander and she was not yet open for another love in her life. It was only nice to still feel desired and appreciated, even at her advancing age.
The heavy form on top of Rosalie now is most certainly not her imagination.
"You could not sleep either?" The owner of the house breathes against her ear, his weight pinning her down firmly into feather-soft mattress, heat radiating from him. "You were just so close. I couldn't help myself."
She had been shown to a comfortable guest room just down the hall from the quarters that Garreth himself commandeered as his own. A soft-speaking house elf showing her the adjoining bathroom, bobbing her a curtsey and telling her that she is an esteemed guest and to please feel free to use anything that she found in the room or to tug at the bell pull if she needed anything.
The little elf had even procured her a thin white cotton nightshirt from the clean laundry that just about fitted her, though she could not help but feel a little exposed in it. The origin of the piece of clothing was unknown, but she had thanked it effusively, knowing that Mr. Weasley certainly did not need to go to all of this trouble for her.
Rosalie wonders what the house elf would do, now, if she somehow shoved the master of the house off of her and managed to pull the bell to alert them to the need for assistance. Probably nothing, if it were to come at all, but any train of thought was worth pursuing in her current situation.
She could not sleep because the downy soft pillows beneath her head were too soft, the scent of cedar wood and apples that pervade the winery was too unfamiliar, the cotton against her bare thighs is too different to her own ordinary night things.
Garreth, she realises, must have thought that she has been waiting for him.
She makes a token attempt to struggle underneath his weight, her voice coming out a soft and reedy thing. "M-Mr. Weasley, I'm flattered, but…"
A hot mouth finds her jawline, trailing kisses from her ear to her throat. What felt like twenty fingers tug at the blanket covering her and through her body like spiders.
"You are so pretty." He says, breathless. "I am sorry, I cannot help myself…"
Rosalie squeaks aloud as a big, bare hand lands on her thigh and slides up - searing heat from his scarred, calloused palm leaving what she is sure must be a visible trail. She struggles underneath him, fear suddenly feeling sharp and sour in her throat.
"D-Don't!" She practically squeaks it out.
As she pleads, she begins to feel tears rise to her eyes as she realises fully how hopeless the situation is, as the feel of his fingers parting her legs reminds her of how much stronger he is than her, how far away from her hand her wand is, how much broader his shoulders are, how much more important he is in the grand scheme of all things.
"I have wanted you for years." He says, though, as he does not respond to whatever she says, she supposes the only one who he expects to listen is also himself. "Y-You've driven me mad, I need you…"
She might be a fool, but she would never have guessed. Years? How many? Since when? Since her widowhood? Since the birth of her son? Since her wedding? Since Hogwarts?
The woman tries to think back to all of the other times that she has seen Garreth, she tries to remember if he had seemed particularly out of sorts, but her mind comes up blank. He has never seemed particularly sweet on her compared to anyone else, nor has he treated her in any different manner since they first met in Potions class. In fact, he had always been rather rakish, and has dated a lot all these years.
He has always been pleasant, has always talked her up, but still… He and Leander were very close when they were younger, so much so he had been best man at their wedding. There was nothing that she could point out that would remark such a thing, neither the crime he is about to commit, nor the justification that he is giving for it.
Rosalie does not know, of course, of the nights he has spent with a fist curled around his cock and his teeth digging into his pillow to the thought of how soft she would be beneath him, how lovely she would look all helpless and bare for him. She does not know of the hatred that he nurtured for his best friend ever since Fifth Year, and how hopeful and glad he was when the man finally died.
She does not have the faintest idea how, as his relatives passed one after another, as he grows increasingly alone in the world, sanity quickly erodes and obsession blooms.
"G-Garreth…" She pleads. "Please! W-We can court, I promise, we can g-go to the theatre, and on walks, just please d-don't…"
She cries out again as Garreth grunts against her ear, as she feels him shift and feel the unmistakable heavy heat of something between his legs digging into her bare thigh. He is pulling up her shift, now. The blankets are pulled down, the air cloyingly warm as it hits her newly freed skin.
Does all air that swirls about him turn warm? Or is he simply particularly emotional right now? She does not like either thought.
"You are so pretty." He repeats. "I cannot keep myself and wait."
She makes another token attempt to struggle away beneath him. Her hips are wriggling, her mouth opening to cry out once more, her shoulders shaking from side to side as tears finally do spill down her cheeks.
The man stops her from screaming for help with a forceful kiss.
"Don't. Do not do this." He says against her lips, so vulnerably tender it makes her feel sick. "I love you."
Rosalie wants to snap at him. She wants to tell him this is not love. If it were, she would not be struggling, she would not be fighting, would not be crying with her heart beating like a wounded animal. However, there is nothing she can say as he muffles her protests with his mouth, as his teeth tug at her bottom lip and his tongue slips into her mouth like a thief in the night and drinks her in.
Her hands are terribly ineffectual as she pushes at his broad shoulders. There is nothing she can do but lay beneath him and take it, even as one of his hands slides up her bare stomach and, suddenly, he is cupping her breast, fingers sliding over her nipple.
"So pretty." He repeats, breaking the kiss, looking down at her with those clear blue eyes. "There is no need to cry, my love…"
"Stop it!" She tells him, brokenly.
Garreth, of course, does not stop. He does not even slowdown in a half-hearted acknowledgement of her exclamation. Instead, his brows simply draw in.
"I need you." He repeats, as if this makes it moral, and then, horrifyingly, "Please, let me. I am sorry."
Her throat is too dry to try screaming again, and nothing comes out of her mouth, not even a whisper of token protest, she is able to articulate. There was no-one in miles around the house, and the only other inhabitants were poltergeists and house elves who could do nothing for her.
She has heard something on the matter before. It is said that, when someone is truly terrified, they simply lose the ability to create sound. They try to scream, but no sound comes out.
That is almost how it feels for Rosalie. She is frozen as he dips his head down, as he lathes his hot tongue over her nipples until they are hard and peaking under his ministrations. She wants to scream, but nothing comes out except shallow gasps of breath.
"I am sorry." He repeats.
It feels almost comic. Garreth, daring to feel sorry, even as her shirt has been pushed to her collarbones and her entire body is free to be drunk in by his adoring, sickeningly loving gaze. She grows terribly used to his apologies.
"Merlin, you are so beautiful."
Her throat lets her emit a high-pitched whimper as he parts her thighs, as one of those hot, calloused hands slips between them, to tease at the seam between her legs. He never stops speaking, he never stops his barrage of apologies and declarations of love and statements to her beauty, and the sound becomes a background noise as her grip to reality falters.
It all has an oneiric quality. It is almost as if she was poisoned with a potion or plagued with a particularly vivid, yet decidedly surreal, nightmare.
"Please, I am sorry, please, you are so pretty, I need to feel you." He is saying, as one of his fingers slips between the lips of her sex to tease at her clit. "I do not want to hurt you. I love you."
Her hips squirm beneath him, trying to escape from the onslaught of his fingers over her pleasure point, but it is to no avail when his figure is so oppressively heavy on top of hers and her legs are spread apart with such strength. She sucks in a pained breath as one of his fingers slips inside of her, coaxing wetness from her quite against her will.
Garreth kisses her cheeks where the tears have wetted them. He murmurs more apologies in between heavy breaths that she knows are of arousal. His thumb rubs over her clit instead, as his lone finger pumps in and out, trying to make sure she is wet enough to take him. That feeling, that calloused thumb, the rhythm of his heavy breathing and the soft whispers of how beautiful she is, they all leave her feeling confused underneath him as a hundred thoughts and feelings and sensations all swirl around in her head.
At least it is not his mouth, she thinks, as his thumb continues to tease pleasurable sparks from her clit.
Rosalie does not know if she could handle looking down and seeing those crimson locks of hair between her thighs, deal with the thought of his tongue traversing the same plane that his fingers are.
Garreth is kissing across her neck, her collarbone, leaving a wet and messy trail behind him. It seems as if he wants her to enjoy it, somehow, but it only leaves her more disgusted with him, even if her senses tell her that he is an experienced and accomplished lover.
"You feel so good." He mumbles. "You are so lovely, and you are mine, now. Just mine... You are all mine."
Fingers curled just so, thumb rubbing at just the right angle with just the right pressure, and her orgasm sneaks up on her like a bandit ambush, as her hips thrust in surprise and she lets out a whimper of pleasure-confusion, not understanding how this could be happening and still feel so good.
"Yes, that's right." He breathes. "So good, so pretty... Ugh, I am sorry, I cannot hold it in any longer…"
He shifts whilst his fingers are still moving jerkily inside of her, little shivers of her retreating orgasm making her feel light-headed and confused. Something nudges between her thighs, slick and thick and hard.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" He breathes, one more time. "I cannot seem to help myself."
With that, Garreth Weasley is gently forcing his cock inside of her wet, yielding body.