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Snape often trespasses in the Restricted Section. Some nights, Lily follows him there. Tonight when she arrives, the chair where he usually sits is empty. There is one window, high in the wall, and the moonlight cuts a path across the room to shine upon his books and parchments spread atop the lone table.
He must be searching the stacks, because his disembodied voice drifts over them towards her. He always seems to sense when she's near. "Sometimes I think I want to cut you, Evans."
For a moment she's a Muggle, worried that it's not really he, but a malicious spirit using his voice to lure her. It can be frightening, playing games in the dark, tiptoeing along a ledge. She says things, does things, she pretends it's all pretend. Down in the pit of her, she knows better. If you falter, she thinks, you will fall. Don't look down, you'll scare yourself, the abyss goes on and on and on. "Want to see me bleed, do you?"
"Yes."
"That's a nasty thing to say." She knows why the idea of it has captured him. Earlier in the day, she'd watched him slice his own palm open for a potion that required Wizard's blood. He'd gasped, though he tried to suppress it. When he looked round to see if anyone had noticed, she'd been staring right at him. After class, she'd brushed by him on the way out, calling him a coward.
"Surely you know the uses for a virgin's blood in potion-making."
"You'd use my blood, even though I'm Muggle born?"
"Even though."
"Tough luck. It's been years since I was unicorn bait."
She hears the crash of books falling to the floor, immediately followed by shouting and cursing as some of the volumes protest the unprovoked attack. She heads in the direction of the disturbance and finds him several rows back. When he sees her, he raises his wand. "You're lying," he says, and then, with eyes narrowing, "Potter?"
"You're sick. I wouldn't fuck him with McGonagall's cunt."
He lowers his hand and oddly quirks his mouth, as though he would laugh if he didn't consider it beneath him. "You are exceedingly vulgar."
"And you have the worst hygiene in the history of Hogwart's."
"I don't care how I look."
"That's because you're ugly."
"I suppose you think you're pretty?"
"What does it matter if I think it? I know you do." He doesn't deny it. It'd be pointless. He's been on his knees before, begging to touch her. He'll be on his knees again and again, before this is over.
He moves past her, deeper into the stacks, where the moon does not reach. They can only see because of the glow from certain luminous books. She follows slowly, trying to give her eyes time to adjust. They've been back here before, this darkest corner of the Restricted Section, where the fundamental battle is forever being waged. It is a strange island, one that few people dare to breach, throbbing with the energy of the ancient texts. The palpable cruelty of the Dark Arts is like the pinpricks of a million needles smothering her skin. She supposes that is why he likes it. She prefers the aura of the other books. They lift her, make her feel like there are clouds beneath her feet. He stands with his back to her, weaving slightly as the sparks the books emit swirl around him. She watches. He returns to stillness for a moment, and then moves to face her. The sparks hover above him, trembling. "Come here," he says, one hand outstretched, glistening in gold light.
"No."
"No?"
"You haven't earned it."
He does laugh, then, a nasty sound that makes some of the books shake with sympathetic scorn. The stars once drawn to him begin to scatter. "You're the one who needs to earn it, Mudblood."
It used to hurt her, when he called her that name, but now she understands it represents her power over him. It's the absolute only way he has to imagine that she's somehow beneath him and, being beneath him, within his reach. "And if I say no? If I never let you near me again?"
"It would make no difference. I hate this. I hate you."
Now she moves closer. This is his power over her. She gets so wet, knowing he can't halt this, can't help it. He can't resist her, just as he couldn't withstand the pain when the knife split his skin. She loves these moments when the calloused curtain parts, revealing a hidden, essential self. "You don't hate me."
"I do."
"You can say it as often as you like. It won't make it true."
"You don't really think I'm ugly."
"Then why do I never face you?" She loves it when he stands behind her, when all she has is his voice, his smell, his hands bringing her to abandon, his knees bending to support her weight as she collapses against him.
"You mean when we touch?"
Is that really how he thinks of it, as a mutual desire? Pathetic. She never touches him. No, she never touches him, but she aches for him to touch her anywhere, everywhere. Perhaps it is worth the same, after all. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Looking at you makes me sick."
"You're a liar and a whore, Evans."
"Whores do it for money. I do it for fun, which makes me a slut."
"Tell me who you slept with."
"Why? So you can hex them?"
"There was more than one?"
She'll never tell him the truth, admit that what she's done with other boys, beautiful boys who made her mouth water just to look at them, can't compare to midnight with him. These are the moments she relives when she touches herself. She closes her eyes, refuses to say anything more. When he approaches her, it's difficult not to reach for him. She forces herself to stay still. This is the way she always plays it. This is how she tells herself it's not real. When he hugs his arms around her waist, turns her round and drags her against him, she presses her lips together to make sure she gives no sound. She goes completely limp in his arms, lets her head fall forward. He always begins with a hand in her hair, sweeping it over her shoulder so that the nape of her neck lies bare for his lips. She links the fingers of his other hand with her own, brings them to her breast. "Lily," he whispers, and his voice is always like this in the dark, a dying man asking for just one minute, one moment, more.
"Yes," she whispers back. Our time here, her mind reflects, just before it prostates itself to her body, is always too brief.