Chapter 6

Monsters Together

Three months. Harry had told her that he wanted them out of France in three months. It was a long stretch of time, especially for a girl whose life was reeling from so many upheavals. But it allowed her much needed time. Not time to heal, because despite what her cousin thought of her well-being, Emily was at one hundred percent. No Emily needed time to process.

Long lost family issues aside, Emily needed to come to grips with her new enamoration. After that first night, Emily didn't hold much hope that the way she saw her cousin would remain the same. And, sure enough, it didn't. She almost couldn't help herself when her eyes roved across his skin. She found herself particularly drawn to his scars, the ones he no longer bothered to hide. Werewolf bites were incredibly painful. How beautiful he must have looked, after just escaping the pack that had almost torn him apart. There must have been so much blood, tears and pain. Emily spent hours imagining drawing her wand over every scar on his body, opening up the wounds and then cauterizing them in the most painful way possible. The musings only made her desires more potent.

In the past, Emily never made an effort to stop her desires from spilling forth. The only effort she ever made was to make sure her lovers could never betray her trust. Confundus charms and forgetfulness potions were her go to means. In one drastic measure, she'd even been forced to memory charm someone, though with her lack of practice, she'd wiped far more than the hour she'd meant to. But accidents were bound to happen when dealing with unbridled passion. And Emily thought of herself as extremely passionate. These efforts, however, were only effective with her one-night stands. Things changed when she entered a long-term relationship in her fourth year. There was no need to ensure her lover couldn't recall their trysts. The only priority Emily needed to ensure was that no one else could know.

The process had been a slow one. Emily flirted and wormed her way into an upperclassmen's heart. From an outsider's perspective, Emily was certain it might have seemed like a simple school romance, though she never allowed others to see the two of them together. It was easy to pass off, after all, her chosen partner was a muggleborn. She doubted her lover ever knew that Emily kept them out of the public eye just in case she went too far one day. Broke her lover's body more than she could handle. Which didn't take much, considering Emily abysmal talent for healing. No, it was much simpler for the Hufflepuff to believe that the social stigma of their relationship was the reason to keep things in the shadows.

Though once Emily was certain that her lover's devotion to her was complete, the relationship took a dark turn. Emily found her love for burning with her longterm squeeze. It was a far better method in causing pain than cutting. Honestly, if Harry thought his scars were bad, she hoped he never met her ex. If there was ever a sight that put Emily in the mood, it was always the moment she removed the glamours from their body. Frankenstein's monster had flesh that looked more human. But Emily did learn to be tender, to be sweet with another. If all you could give your partner was pain, then they would only ever seek escape, after all. Emily found that out the hard way.

But now, with Harry, things were different. Things were monumentally different with Harry. Harry didn't scream for one. He never whimpered or showed fear. No, he was extremely comfortable on the other end of her wand, as though he'd spent his entire life there. But though she'd lost a good portion of what she loved to prey upon, she gained other enticing aspects. New things, new feelings she hadn't felt before. His confidence and power made her almost weak in the knees. His unrelenting will made her want to break him. To push him until he did scream, until he did weep, until he'd break down and beg. Harry was the first person she'd pushed around who didn't try to run away. He stood firm and pushed back. And Emily had found herself flat on her ass on more than one occasion because of it.

Deep down, Emily wondered if her cravings for her cousin would have ever manifested had they not had that altercations days before. She'd seen him bleed before, seen him in pain, and it had never really set her off before. Part of her wondered how much of her emotions had been tainted by the euphoria of the Imperius Curse. Oh, how she regretted that she had fought the curse so hard. She lamented letting the fear overtake her, the idea of losing and hurting Harry clouding an experience she would have begged to have otherwise. But once he'd lost consciousness and all that remained was his freshly flowing blood, her fear subsided. She patched him up well enough, and once the bleeding was stemmed to her satisfaction, she let her thoughts run free.

"Now cut me."

Those choked out words. It was a heady drug, replaying those words in her mind. Amazing that a situation that had seemed so impossibly terrifying while it had been happening was, in hindsight, so intensely sexual. She'd had been asked many things by her lovers. Stop, let me go, don't kill me. These were common phrases during sex, as far as Emily was concerned, even though actual intercourse was something she'd never experienced. She'd never been asked for pain, never been asked for the one thing she was so good at giving.

"Now kill me."

And that phrase, oh, that phrase. If that wasn't something she craved to hear over and over again. If being given the power to cut and maim could be considered foreplay, then being given the power to end a life, his life, could be considered a climax. As she kept watch over his fitful rest after their altercation, Emily knew that she would stop at nothing to eventually hear those words tread past his lips again. But to do that was difficult task. Because just the words would never be enough. She needed a better setting as well. Preferably with the two of them naked on a bed, her atop him, with a wand levelled at his face.

But how to make this dream into a reality? Acquiring a lover was no simple feat, to be done at the drop of a hat. It was even more difficult considering that Harry was past the age of being a hormone addled schoolboy. On top of all that, including her violently perverse bedroom desires, she also firmly believed Harry Gaunt was a prude of the highest order. She supposed she could broach the topic of his past relationships, but even the thought of another woman, or man she supposed, having been with him before soured her mood. No, she certainly didn't want to hear anything about that.

But she did have experience in this area. Tempting a conquest. Sure, Harry was unlike any other person she'd ever made a play for, but he still was a human being. He was a man too, which probably would make things easier. Girls were almost always more work than boys were, she learned early on. But boys had looser lips. She had to be far more careful erasing her tracks if she picked up a boy for the night. So long as Harry wasn't a eunuch, she had confidence in breaking him eventually.

She started simple. Step one required less conversation. Lessening communication with someone increased the amount they thought about your actions. Secondly, she didn't bother to hide her gaze. She let her eyes burn holes into his body, in particular, the scars she could make out on his neck. She hoped to leave a permanent mark of her own there one day. She never looked him in the eyes. She felt that if she did that, he'd muster up the stones to ask questions. She wanted to keep things obscure, to let his imagination run wild.

To do this, she introduced her third step. A change of fashion. Harry already knew she wasn't a fan of skirts or dresses, but she transfigured her trousers into tighter breeches. She was dismayed when this offered zero results. After a week of not even drawing his gaze a single time, she cast off even those, choosing to prance through the house in only a shirt and undergarments. This time she'd struck gold. She recalled the first morning she'd entered the room for breakfast in her new state of dress and remembered how wide his eyes had gone. The coffee in his hand held in mid-air as he completely forgot to set it back on the table as he stared for several moments. But her victory was short lived as he made a small cough, sat down his coffee and motioned towards her food. She forewent the use of brassieres altogether, and, of course, she didn't even own a corset. They'd fallen out of fashion years ago, but at the orphanage, where funds were limited, she knew some of the girls did wear hand-me-down corsets from some of the matrons. This, surprisingly, yielded even greater results than her choice of bottom wear. While Harry would occasionally allow his eyes to drift towards her legs and buttocks, they would consistently be drawn to her breasts. Of course, with her unchecked arousal, she did have a couple points to take notice of in that area, so really, his attention should have been expected.

To her eternal frustration, Harry seemed content to remain a happy voyeur. He stared, but that's all he seemed willing to do. By now, any Hogwart's student who was even remotely attracted to a female, would have been begging to touch her body. But his interest seemed to stop at looking. In the end, she supposed it didn't matter. He was looking, and she knew that meant he was wanting. So, one night, three weeks into their stay in France, she made her move. She knew he'd fight her on it. She'd already prepared to goad him on, push him down the path she desired. She could only hope he fell victim to her allure or her manipulations.


Three months. Harry wanted to be out of France in three months. Gellert Grindlewald had far more important matters to address than an errant Hogwarts student, after all, and Harry knew he was still embroiled in toppling several magical governments in Europe. They had time. Time for Emily to recuperate, even though she claimed to be fine. She desperately needed rest. But her behavior was changing, and Harry wondered if it was something he needed to address or not. It was certainly a problem though.

Her actions weren't overtly antagonistic. She listened to him and replied whenever he asked a question, but she was quiet, hardly speaking otherwise. Before their disagreement on Emily's actions in Paris, she'd occasionally touch Harry, perchance even risk a hug. Now, she'd barely even looked him in the eye. Though her eyes wandered elsewhere on his body. Ever since showing her his scars, he didn't bother to hide them afterwards. She'd would stare at the jagged flesh at his neck. He wondered what she was thinking.

Thie staring and sudden ceasing of physical contact shouldn't be so worrisome. It could simply mean that she'd finally caught on to his discomfort with physical affection. However, in an almost twisted turn, her other actions compounded on the first and left him scrambling for an explanation.

Other than the first morning he'd been with Emily, the two of them hadn't had any more embarrassing moments. Of course, the eyeful he gotten that first time had been awkward enough, and they never spoke of it. The two of them had maintained a clear boundary in regard to bathing spaces and separate sleeping areas. Though Emily had no problem shoving him awake during their first morning in Paris. In his defense, he'd been keeping a worried vigil on her after their fight and hadn't rested until much later.

So, it was extremely unnerving when she began to walk around their appropriated home barely dressed. Now Harry wasn't completely oblivious to seduction tactics. Before the fighting got too intense in his own timeline, he'd had a few women prancing around in front of him in little more than flimsy undergarments. He'd been young, good looking, famous and wealthy. It would have been strange if he didn't have a woman or two show interest.

It had been three weeks since they'd moved into an abandoned home. Harry wasn't sure if the previous occupants had evacuated the city, or if they'd been carted off by the current regime. It could have been either option. A quarter of the homes in the area seemed to be abandoned and/or showed signs of damage.

If he hadn't known better, he'd have been certain that the young girl sitting next to him was trying to seduce him. Several things convinced him otherwise. For one, she wouldn't ever touch him. Even as she sat down next to him on the couch, reading some book she'd found in the home, she kept to this aspect. With nothing on other than a tight shirt and her underwear, her firm legs stretched out, her toes centimeters from him, she made certain that contact was never made.

The second was that every woman who'd ever made a pass at him looked at him with certain gaze. Ron had crudely commented on one girl's stare to be 'fuck me' eyes. Emily never looked at him when she was under dressed. The only time he'd catch her looking at him were when she was staring at his scars, or in their short, clipped conversations that he'd always have to initiate. Ones that he lacked the stones to start when he could see her almost bare ass half a meter from him.

Harry was not a saint, nor was he blind. Emily was a few months shy of being of age, and she clearly possessed all the womanly curves that came with the territory. But it was the sudden exposure of herself that really had him noticing her more alluring features.

Emily was barely above 160 centimeters, if that. But her short height did not offset her looks in the slightest. She was slim, almost to a point that Harry might think illness, if it weren't for her age and obvious appetite.

Her face was bony, but if one were to look for longer than a brief moment, they'd see she was almost regal looking. Her hair was black, down to her shoulders and straight, but in the mornings, it was a frightening frizzy mess. The soft brown eyes still threw him off slightly whenever he caught sight of them, but their tones were soothing. Her small nose was a bit pointed at the tip, but it was cute. And her lips were fairly thin, but seemed to always be dry, judging by how often her tongue danced over them. Her ears were just a fraction too large for her head, but Harry only came to that conclusion after debating on it internally for almost half an hour.

Her breasts were small, to be honest, she was barely pushing past being flat. Her nipples were just as tiny, and Harry would swear to anyone that he hadn't meant to look, but she almost never wore a bra under her thin shirts. It was something anyone would eventually notice, right?

Her arms were thin, but Harry was well aware that she could pack a decent punch for her size. He remembered the smarting of his face clearly. Her hips widened at her waist, just a bit, enough that you'd certainly know her gender, but no more than that. Her legs seemed so very long compared to the rest of her, but that might have been from the angle he'd been viewing as she sat with those very same legs stretched towards him. Her feet, on the other hand seemed tiny. But they were well maintained and though Harry had never spared a woman's feet more than a second thought, he thought they were as dainty as the rest of her.

It wasn't as if Harry was unaware of Emily's looks, of course. But in his own time, her features were far more animalistic, primal... predatory. Adding in her urge to kill him, and he'd never spare her a second glance as a female of his species.

But now, it was almost like she was flaunting her body in his face. It was distracting, unwelcome... and oh so disturbingly arousing. It was a painful reminder just how long it had been since Harry had last been with a woman. Clearly, he told himself, had he not been through such a long dry spell her antics would not be so bothersome.

When all was said and done, however, Harry had no idea what her goal was. If it was a seduction, why did she not look at him? Why not make an actual pass, shoot her shot, as Ron would say? Was she hoping that he'd jump her or something? If not, then what other game could she be playing? He supposed that it didn't matter either way. She'd get the hint eventually, so long as he kept didn't stray over the line of decency.

All of his questions were answered at the beginning of their fourth week together. It was the gentle jostling of his bed that roused him. Having been the target of a manhunt for a year, Harry didn't experience deep sleep anymore. The slightest motion would make his eyes snap open. When they did so this morning Harry was greeted by the sight Emily crawling towards him on the bed, completely starkers with her yew wand in hand.

While Harry would admit that he'd noticed Emily's body over the past few weeks, it had most certainly not gotten to the point where he was comfortable with... whatever she was planning. With one fast motion, Harry pulled himself out of the bed, to stand against the wall with a couple meters of safe distance between them.

"You weren't supposed to wake up," she muttered. She sounded remarkably calm for a woman who'd been caught brazenly sneaking into a man's bed early in the morning. Then again, considering her actions, perhaps her calm attitude was only to be expected. Emily Riddle didn't execute a plan on a whim, and Harry knew that this decision of hers had been weeks in the making.

"Yeah, I don't sleep like you do. And I am pretty certain that... whatever you were planning on doing, would have woken me up." His eyes drank in the view she offered him greedily, even though it made him feel like a cad.

"Watching me often while I sleep, Harry? Why don't you come back and keep watching me a bit more?" There they were. The eyes that he'd been expecting ever since her games had started. She didn't stop there, extending her wand out to him. Harry found himself magically pulled toward the bed. His momentum stopped inches from the edge of the bed, and he wondered if he needed to have his wand drawn as well.

"I'd rather not. I'd rather you get dressed. I'd rather you tell me why I had to wake up to you... like this?!" Harry tried not sound completely stupefied while motioning to her state of dress and failed.

Emily sighed, still completely unabashed by her own nudity as she rolled over and laid down to look at the ceiling. "I'd have preferred that you woke up with your cock halfway down my throat, but as you have made apparent," She turned her head and shot him a pointed look. "You don't sleep like me."

Harry found the image of her thin lips wrapped around him disturbingly enticing, but he shoved the thought away. Far away. "Yeah, okay, that's... never happening. This" Harry made a wide sweeping motion, "Also never happened. Are we clear? I don't know why you... look... Wow, why is this so difficult?" Words were failing him now, and he knew he needed to calm down. He was too flustered.

Wiping his hand over his eyes, Harry let out a deep sigh. He attempted to look at her, but she had propped her body up on the bed with one arm, giving his eyes a full display, and he had to turn them away. It was too difficult to order his thoughts with her tempting him.

"Emily, we're cousins." Harry made to continue but found himself on the defensive a moment later.

"Second cousins. While a bit closer than preferred, it's not too unusual for our family. I saw what little bit of the Gaunt family tapestry that remained. It's a very thin family tree Harry. Very."

It was as he'd thought. She was committed to this plan of hers. "Are you even listening to yourself? What are you even suggesting? Having kids? Marriage? Just a roll in the sack? All of which, by the way, I am completely opposed to."

As though everything he just asked her didn't matter, she stayed on her previous train of thought. "I'm a half-blood, Harry, but no one knows who my father is, just you and myself. My mother is a pureblood with extensive lineage. You're a pureblood. Any children we have will be accepted as pureblood. Clearly you don't have a girl waiting on you, otherwise you wouldn't be toting me around the continent. Unless your preference lies towards men, then you really don't have much reason to refuse me."

Harry gave, what he hoped was, the most convincing shrug of his entire life. "You got me. I'm queer as can get. Love dick. Can't get enough of it, really. Things would never work out for us, you know, with you not having one." He made an awkward wave to Emily's nethers, which only made her laugh.

"If you're going to lie to me Harry, at least make it convincing. How am I supposed to believe your interest in men if you can't even look at me?"

Harry shrugged a second time, fishing for something, anything to say in response. "Oh, you know, girls and their... bits... are just gross. Don't even want to look at them."

At his last comment, she gently ran her fingers from her breasts between her legs and left her hand covering her sex. Harry refused to look at it, so he couldn't tell if she was pleasuring herself, or if she was simply hiding it from view. Considering her audacity so far, it was more than possible that it was the former. A fact that he found very unsettling.

"So, you think women are gross, Harry? Or is it just me that you are repul-"

"Emily." Harry's voice was firm and even. He needed to make it clear that his patience with her was gone. So, he made sure to use a tone that asked for silence, and he was happy that she gave it to him. "There comes a time, in order to preserve your dignity, when you have to accept your losses with grace and move on."

Emily scoffed at him derisively, returning her eyes to the ceiling. Dejectedly, she muttered. "What good is dignity when you're alone, Harry?"

"You're not alone, Emily. I keep telling you, I'm here for you. I'm not going anywhere. I won't-"

"Touch me?" She cut him off and her words were almost sinister. "Hug me? Do you think I am blind, Harry? Stupid? You're repulsed by me. You won't even embrace me when I have every inch laid bare for you. Yours for the taking."

Without warning Emily sat upright on the bed, and turning to look at him, she began to sing in a grating falsetto:

Poor, ugly Emily Riddle

Her veins are filled with mud.

Disgusting bastard Emily Riddle

If only she had pureblood.

"I heard that song every day for my first two months at Hogwarts, Harry. I don't think you're aware how much of an outcast a muggle-raised Slytherin was. Even worse, a girl raised in a muggle orphanage without a family. But you know me, Harry. Laying down and taking abuse isn't something I'm good at. I started fighting back. No one has allowed that song past their lips in years, Harry. But I remember it perfectly. I know what your kind think of me. I'm filth. I disgust you so much you can't even bear to touch me."

Emily made a motion with her wand and Harry honestly thought that the two of them were about to brawl. She surprised him, when she instead drew the tip of her wand above her breasts, her skin splitting thinly in a neat line. As her blood slowly seeped from the cut down her body, she goaded him.

"Touch me now, Harry. Touch my filthy blood. Prove to me, right now, that the rift between us is not about my muggle father."

It was a perfect storm raging against him. Had she not been bleeding, Harry could have done as she asked. If he had to heal her, he could have done that too, easily. But physically touching her was already so difficult, and the sight of her body being adorned with lines of crimson held him frozen in place. Breathing had become a chore and her voice was fading from his ears. The only thing he could focus on was the threads of red creeping down between her breasts. Deep down, he knew this was nothing more than an attempt to force him into touching her body, but she couldn't comprehend his true struggle.

Knowing that he had to do something, he asked. "What is all this about, Emily?"

She gave a short laugh. "What is it not about, Harry. But at its core, this is about getting what I need. Every time I've needed you, the only thing you can give me are words. And even then, those shallow words cut me deep. To the marrow."

Letting out a short sigh, she continued. "But Uncle Morfin had one thing right. You're a man, Harry. And if I couldn't get what I needed from you as your family, why not try my hand at being your lover. Surely you would spare a woman an embrace if she allowed you to do anything you wanted with her, right? She could be useful to you, worth something."

"Emily, you're worth a lot to me. Your an exceptional person. You're incredibly gifted. Ama-"

She turned her wand on him and hexed him. Though it was a mild bludgeoning hex, it certainly winded him when it nailed him right in the solar plexus. As he wheezed to get air back in his lungs, she powered on.

"Words. And more words. You don't have to tell me what I am, Harry. I KNOW WHAT I AM! I know what I am far better than you do." Her shout rang in his ears.

"Sure, you're my family. But, really, you're just some unknown individual telling me what to do. What good is that to me? I need something real, Harry, something tangible. Not a cousin who can only shout platitudes to me when I am hurting."

Gently trailing a finger up a line of blood that was coating her stomach, she lifted it closer to the light. "My blood isn't good enough for you. But your blood is more than good enough for me."

Her words didn't make much sense to him, but she didn't give him a lot of time to process them. With a wave of her wand, Emily was dressed. Her shirt was black, and it was impossible to see the lines of blood that the fabric absorbed.

"You were right, Harry. Sometimes, in order to preserve my dignity, I need to cut my losses and act with grace. Please, Harry. Can you hug me, just this once?"

Though it seemed like a simple request, Harry was all too aware that it was actually an ultimatum. Everything she'd been doing these few days had been for this moment. Either he proved himself to her here, or she was done with him. It felt like cutting her losses with him here meant she would leave and never look back. Harry stepped forward as soon as she asked, arms opening to hold her. He didn't realize that she'd been fully aware of his struggle to touch her this entire time. Furthermore, he was ashamed that he allowed her to jump to the wrong conclusions for so long. He would fix this. He could do better. He'd explain his apprehension reasonably and together, they could work to help him move past it. Emily was the only person he had in this time period to lean on, he couldn't let her down. He didn't want to be a Dursley. He didn't want to fail her as he had been failed.

Though his commitment was strong, the scars of his mind were far deeper than he could ever imagine. His body froze inches away from touching her. He shuddered violently, pushing at the mental restraints he'd subconsciously shackled himself with. His vision zeroed in on her neck, and all of a sudden, he felt as though he were back in that stall. His hands were crushing her windpipe. She was begging him for help, and he was slamming her skull into the stone floor. It all felt so completely real, he thought he might have gone to hell. When he resurfaced from his own torment, he was alone.

"Shit." Harry wasted no time. Grabbing his wand, he began attempting to track Emily. He followed her magic south down the suburb they had taken up residence in before her magical trace vanished. Knowing that she'd apparated, Harry gave a sigh. Emily didn't know how to apparate. Scanning the ground around himself and sniffing the air, he didn't notice any signs of her splinching herself. With a twist, Harry followed Emily with a crack.

Tracking apparition was not an easy feat. It took a great amount of knowlegdge and understanding of magic. Something that Harry lacked. But such knowledge was not a necessity to track an amateur like Emily. The magic Emily had used was less like apparition, which willed oneself to another location, and more like tessering, which was where a rip in space formed that linked two places. Far more similar to portkey travel. Appartion had a limit to distance that was proportionate to the user's magic. Portkeys could transport groups across continents. Emily's form of travel was incredibly dangerous to do without a focus, but it was simply another show of Emily's ridiculous amount of magical power.

Harry found himself at a familiar beach, with an even more familiar woman only a few feet away from him at the water's edge. She had her legs stretch out with her feet gently being covered by the waves. He didn't speak, he knew that she had to be aware that he was present. Apparition wasn't the stealthiest means of travel. So, he quietly moved to sit beside her and decided to wait for her to speak.

"I suppose you really are attracted to men." Her first comment completely tore through his resistance and made him laugh.

After a moment to catch his breath, he replied, "We both know I was lying. It's no secret I've been staring at you just as much as you've been staring at me."

Emily shrugged, not really caring to address his statement. "Perhaps I should have waited longer. To be honest, keeping my libido in check has never been my strong suit."

Harry nodded. "Well, good to know I wasn't going crazy. I kept telling myself what you were doing, but the reality... seemed too hard to believe."

Emily smirked, asking, "Why? Are you ugly or something?"

Harry smirked as well, "Shouldn't that be something you can tell for yourself?"

When Harry watched her smile fade, he frowned as well. "I don't really find people attractive. So, no, not really."

Harry was torn. A part of him wanted to dig into the reasoning behind her statement. He'd known that the Voldemort of his time was incapable of feeling love. Perhaps he could finally understand why. But another part of him was whispering into his heart, telling him that some things, some secrets, never should be allowed into the light of day. Harry muted the voice.

"So if you don't find me attractive, then what with the rude awakening an hour ago."

Emily once again shrugged her shoulders. "You're a first for me, Harry."

Her words made him awkward, and he couldn't help his blush. "Oh, um... thanks."

Emily scoffed at his words. "You don't get it. I didn't expect you to."

"Then explain it to me. I won't ever understand unless you do."

"You're strong, Harry. Stonger than anyone I've ever met, save Dumbledore. And your barely older than me. And you know... you know what I am. Or at least, you're familiar enough with it. And it doesn't send you running for the hills. Every other person who has ever had even seen a glimpse, vanishes from my sight. You stayed. You didn't tell me that I don't belong. You accepted me."

Harry nodded. Of course, Emily Riddle was a far easier pill to swallow than the monster she grew to become. But to others, people who had no reason to open their arms to the damaged girl beside him, he could see why she hadn't found acceptance in her life yet.

"Family is supposed to accepts its member's quirks and oddities. Don't worry about it. We all have a monster or two in the closet."

"The monsters in my closet aren't flobberworms and bowtruckles, Harry. They're dementors and lethifolds."

Harry sighed, not really sure what he could tell her. Until it dawned on him that the truth was his best option

"I killed someone." His words pulled her gaze to him, as he expected.

"You've been fighting a war, that's no surprise."

Harry shook his head. "She wasn't even related to my war, Emily. Not really. Just a young girl who'd made a mistake, and who reminded me of the wrong person. I killed her, and I made it as painful as possible. I did it with a smile."

His words caused her to go eerily silent. "Of course, I wasn't in my right mind at the time. I was in pain, just got away from some people who had just set me on fire actually. But those excuses don't change the facts. I killed someone, horrifically. So, before you start measuring the monsters in your closet, I can assure you, we aren't so different. And I would never go as far as to think I am better than you. How could I? Not when every time I look at you, I remember what I did to that girl."

Emily remained silent, and Harry could only wonder just what she made of his story. "Is that why you refused me this morning? Because I remind you of her?"

"There's... a lot more to it, than that. But it was definitely a heavy weight in my decision, yes."

He heard her give a small laugh and couldn't help but question it. "What's up?"

"Nothing. I've been wracking my brain as to why it is you seem to not be able to stand the idea of touching me. I suppose if I remind of someone you brutally murdered, it makes a lot of sense."

Harry nodded in understanding. "Yeah, well. Thats my big secret. The monster in my closet, so to speak." He didn't want to bring up the monsters under his bed or in the other corners of his mind. She certainly didn't need to know that much.

He didn't stop, hoping to get her to share more of herself. "What about you, Emily? What's your big bad monster?"

He watched as she started drawing lines in the sand, and for a moment, thought she wouldn't answer. Until she did, and he found himself woefully unprepared. "I masturbate every night while I imagine torturing you."

Harry turned away from her, violently coughing. It shouldn't have been a surprise. Hell, to be honest, he didn't even find it much of a shock. They both knew she liked hurting people. But the thought that her preferences were so closely linked to her sexuality was just... not something he'd been ready to hear.

Once he gathered his breathing back under his control, he cleared his throat. "I'm not sure whether I need to be flattered or scared."

Emily shrugged again. "Is it bad that I really want you to feel both."

Harry sighed. "Not really, no. To be honest, hearing your 'secret' is far less surprising than what I woke up to today."

Emily smiled, "Somehow, I doubt that."

"No, really," Harry shook his head. "Remember, Emily. I already know that you like to hurt things. I know that desire calls to you. In ways that no one can really understand. I even accept that it's something that you'll likely live with for the rest of your life. You have the desire to... be bad, I guess. And having bad desires isn't really wrong, but it's when you give i-"

"I've given into that desire more than you could ever know, Harry. Though I guess it's cute that you think you're the first." She said, sarcasm dripping from the end.

"I know you have, Emily. I've seen it, remember your whole 'flaying the werewolf' moment. I'm sure that you've exercised your wants on people too. Fellow students and even some of the other charges at Wool's. Emily, I swore that I wouldn't fault you for what you've done in the past. But I want you to do better from now on."

Emily scoffed. "You'd have better luck asking the sun to stop rising, Harry."

Harry groaned in frustration. "Is that really the only thing you can find happiness in, Emily. Hurting people, lusting for their fear and pain?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I've only ever found one other thing I liked."

Harry nodded. "Great, try to focus more on that, then. Fo-"

"I'd like to," Emily cut him off. "But he practically threw me out of his bed this morning."

Harry sucked on his teeth, hard. He'd really fouled that one up. "Yeah, I should've expected that."

"You really should have."

Harry sighed. They were at crossroads. In the end, he stood. If Emily needed something to help her, then he would provide it. Now that he had potentially discovered what was the crux of her twisted mind in the future, he wouldn't allow it to run rampant and unchecked. Pulling out his wand, he cast wards all around them, shielding them from the prying eyes of muggles. Though the beach was deserted this early in the morning, there was no way to guarantee it would stay that way.

"What are you doing?" Her voice made its way to his ears just as he finished his task.

"You said you wanted to hurt me, right?" As he spoke, he pulled off his shirt, showing her his scarred torso. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or it was true, but he felt as though she suddenly turned into a predator when he did so.

"Give it your best shot, Emily. But you don't get it for free. Come at me with everything you got. And take what you want." He got his wand ready as she slowly pulled herself up on her feet. It was now that he realized she really had become the predator. She slowly drew her tongue across her upper lip before biting down on the lower. Her eyes became lidded and he could tell her breathing was heavier, even if he couldn't hear it.

"Talk dirty to me like that anymore, Harry, and you'll never be able to get rid of me."