lumos_maxima | open rp post #002

With the mention of Draco's journey being "touching", Draco scowled and his nostrils flared somewhat, a bit embarrassed by the accusation—and miffed at the sarcasm, not positive how to feel about Snape's words overall.

He obediently followed his former professor, unsure where this was going, but his guard mounted increasingly; though it had been a couple of years since the war, Draco still greatly operates in the realm of fight-or-flight. It was easier, now, because it was safer, but sometimes even simple things put him on a sort of irritable, jittery edge.

Once inside, Draco again did as he was told, dropping himself on Snape's chair, glowering across the table at his object of irritation as petulant teenagers often do. He barely acknowledged the tea as it came together, having barely seemed to notice its initial assembly—though he did have a derisive little laugh about it to himself in his mind, how Snape at least had such modest comforts.

He supposed that Snape's skepticism is natural, given their history—and it was true that Draco had nothing else to offer by ways of his motivation. Something as vague as "a feeling" or "a calling" sounded like absolute rubbish, almost even to himself.

Were it not for the horrible agony it entailed, as he is a coward, Draco would have offered for Snape to just have a forceful look right into his damn mind to find his own convincing.

Draco tilted his head somewhat, retaining his mild scowl.

"If you really thought I was here to kill you, would you really be offering me tea?" Draco's eyes momentarily dipped to glance at the glossy, steaming surface of the tea, then back to Snape. "You no longer have any reason to be so polite with your enemies," Draco spat indignantly, "if that is indeed how you perceive me."

"I've never perceived you as my enemy," Severus replied matter-of-factually.

The teas poured, Severus unclasped his hands to reach for the cup nearest to him. He took up his wand with his other hand and conjured a small jug of milk onto the table. He didn't take milk in his tea, but perhaps Draco did. He gave his tea a quick stir, put the spoon down and took a careful sip.

"I'd be unsurprised if you still considered me to be your enemy, though after everything that's happened, this life I now have to live... I frankly can't bring myself to care. You're either here to finish the job or you're not."

He paused to take another sip. He pondered for a moment just how candid he ought to be with Draco, then decided it no longer really mattered. All was said and done. He was now a fugitive with nothing left to live for except survival itself. Severus no longer deemed it terribly necessary to be so clandestine about his thoughts and motives anymore.

"Is that a legacy you're still trying to uphold? Being a Death Eater to make your father proud? Or has Lucius finally learned to find pride in more dignifying things? How is your father, by the way?"

"Well," Draco spat tensely, his shoulders reflecting his irritability. "Thank you. But I didn't come here to tell you about how my father is doing."

"Well" meant that Lucius was staggering with his name, trying to cover his ass—again. Watching his family struggle with the shame was difficult, and it was also Draco's burden to share.

Snape's behavior wasn't a surprise; Snape had a special talent for finding one's sore spots, but it wasn't usually Draco subjected to this. Indeed, Draco normally got to have a laugh at Harry and his friends as Snape turned his dull-toned wit unto them.

But that was years ago. Draco didn't like the feeling that this fact evoked within him.

"Further," Draco began again, "there is no bloody being a Death Eater with the Dark Lord dead, is there? What's more—"

Draco's lip lifted, glancing at the corner of the table for a moment, his brows furrowing as he shook his head. His hands knotted anxiously, and he ignored the tea for now, chilly though he was.

"—I've got no interest in murder."

He couldn't say he'd made his father proud. Draco found Snape's eyes again, not wholly positive how to convince him.

"I am not here to finish any damn—job."

Severus listened to Draco's vitriolically spoken remarks with little more than a display of mild interest. Oh, he was very interested in what Draco had to say - but, being typical to himself, Severus only showed the barest hints of interest, while the cogs turned sharply over in his mind.

"I know," Severus replied simply to Draco saying he had no interest in murder. "I always knew you weren't cut out to be a Death Eater. Even despite your father's desperate attempts to groom you in his image, I could always tell, even when you were a young boy, that it wasn't in you.

"Still. Doesn't mean someone hasn't put you up to it. The Dark Lord being dead and his reign fallen doesn't mean someone with an unhealthy appetite for power isn't thinking of keeping the Death Eater regime going."

Severus waved his hand at Draco's untouched tea. "Drink your tea. It'll warm you up."

"I'm not guilting anybody. I'm merely pointing out what's obvious to me."

He stared at the wall across the room, still lying on his side with his back facing Bellatrix, as she delivered her next comment: that he was still here because he wanted to be.

Well. He couldn't quite deny that now, could he? Severus never did anything he didn't want to do, after all, unless it was something that would ultimately have a payoff that benefited him. Sleeping with Bellatrix in no way benefited him. Yet, here he was. And Bellatrix sleeping with him in no way benefited her - at least, not to his knowledge - and yet here she was, too.

"The same could be said for you," he replied simply.

If you want to set something up, let's do it. :D

Excellent. Do we want the worst possible timing? Or him showing up the day after and noticing... oddities?

I love details.

The day after works for me! Maybe she contacted him for some reason and so he shows up - but shows up post-full moon.

[ She had made sure to alert him to the fact she had the books and Other Things he had been in search of. It is amazing how good and discreet she can be. She was so careful with her wording every time she did this for him.

Yesterday would have been a terrible day to show up. Today she is tired. Her body is sore in ways that can't be treated with Muggle medication and potions make her physically ill after the full moon.

So of course she is lounging on her couch watching an old movie. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes usually has her snickering. Not today though as her face still hurts. She has no idea how she got a black eye but at least it should be gone in another few days. Her plan is to survive off take out and tea until she feels like dealing with the world again. ]

"We've established that much, haven't we?" The question didn't warrant an answer, not really. Bellatrix shifted in her spot, adjusting the covers around her; though the room wasn't necessarily cold, it was a bit chillier than she was used to and she'd sat at the edge of the bed for too long until Severus woke up, anyway.
Sleeping with him wasn't of benefit to her, that much she was aware of, but it had happened nonetheless - and that was curious in itself, though Bellatrix wasn't sure she wanted to inquire about the hows and why so abruptly.

She glanced at him, with his back turned to her as she felt was most appropriate and most fitting and soon enough she was turning to her side, with her back turned towards him as well. As it should be - had it been another pair it could have been some sort of sad picture (and then again, maybe it fit them well, too). Not that the thought had crossed her mind.

"What point is there in pressing the matter any further now?

"Sleep, Severus. Maybe one of us will wake up and this will have been but a dream."

Not that she meant it, not necessarily.

Edited 2013-10-01 01:01 (UTC)

Severus answered with nothing but a quiet, noncommittal hmph at Bellatrix's suggestion that this could all just be an unpleasant dream. Again, he closed his eyes with the intent of hoping he might be able to procure at least another hour's sleep but in the lingering silence that fell between Bellatrix and himself, he found his mind starting to wander.

To the previous night, specifically. As he lay on his side while the room slowly but steadily became brighter as the sun rose, the memory of Bellatrix with her legs wrapped around his waist while she eagerly ground her pelvis against his thrusts entered his thoughts. How wanton and utterly shameless she'd been. The way she'd scratched and clawed at him with her nails, the way she'd seemed to want him. He hadn't felt wanted like that since--

Well. Nobody ever wanted him. Definitely not the way Bellatrix had seemed to want him last night. It was a pathetically, dangerously, intoxicating feeling: being wanted. And as he lay there listening to birds starting to chirp outside, Severus turned his head on the pillow to look over at her.

He lifted his arm and stretched it out across to her, rolling partway onto his back, and he let the back of his knuckles brush up along her exposed shoulder blade.

Draco fidgeted with irritation, lifting his upper lip to reveal a bit of teeth. He was irritated with Snape's insinuation that he hadn't what it took to be a Death Eater—the others had said so as well. But at the same time, Draco didn't want that sort of life—still, it felt like a jab at his competence. His lack of bravery.

Draco picked up the cup, but didn't drink; he didn't know how weak Snape has become since fleeing (he looks a bit badly off), but surely he wouldn't resort to petty poison to off a haggard, tired teenaged boy. Draco knew he was being paranoid, but with the politics of everything, the trauma of the war wearing on him heavily, he couldn't help but be that way.

"Nothing like that has yet come to my attention; likely that if it's true, my mother would try to keep me out of it." Draco's father, however, was another story, which is why Draco fails to mention. "If anyone's put me up to this, it's Potter," he spat.

Then, Draco decided to sip his tea, but he continued glowering across the table at Snape.

"At first I thought that he was giving me the run-around, but I could feel it—I knew he wasn't."

Severus had to pick his moment. He had to wait until Jane was on her own - a near impossible task - before he could make his move. He stealthily watched her from the Slytherin table at dinnertime, in between making idle conversation with Mulciber and Avery over a plate of roast meat and vegetables. And at last, when dinner was over, he discreetly watched her rise from the table and head out of the Great Hall, minus her friends.

Severus excused himself while the opportunity presented itself, explaining to his friends that he was going to library to study for a little while (he did this so frequently that nobody questioned it as he climbed off the bench) and he casually walked out of the Great Hall after Jane.

He cornered her in an empty corridor, grabbing her by the hair and hauling her into a small alcove. He pushed her up against the wall, pressing himself up against her back, and he gave her hair a sharp tug as he rested his chin on her shoulder with his lips by her ear.

"I hope you're not busy tonight, Potter."

Jane, likewise, had actually been on her way to the library. She'd had a few books she'd needed to pick up for her Defense Against the Dark Arts assignment, because, y'know what? She actually did her homework and was damn good at it. She was vying for a position amongst Aurors after graduation, and nearly everyone knew it. Sirius was supposed to head down to the kitchens to procure butterbeers and eventually they were all going to meet in their usual locale for studying and harassing each other. That is to say, the boys' dorm.

So yes, suffice to say, she was supposed to be busy. But as Snape had her pressed up against the wall, her cheek flat against the concrete, his chin digging into her shoulder, she suddenly found all of her plans going out the window.

Oops.

"And if I am?" She hissed back, her voice low and dangerous.

"Tough."

His reply was casual but assertive. Digging his fingers into her hair at the base of her skull, he wrenched her head back against his shoulder. He brought his other hand up to grab her throat and he held her firmly, as though she was little more than bird whose neck he was about to snap, while he murmured by her ear.

"We both know that if you really didn't want me deciding for you whether you're busy or not, you'd put up much more of a fight."

She uttered a small cry as he pulled her neck backwards, the rest of her body still pressed against the wall. Even so, she tried to wriggle out of his grasp.

"Maybe. You never really know. Maybe the fight's coming?" It was hard to speak with his hand at her throat, but Jane did her best.

The cry that issued from Potter's mouth caused a small rush of excitement to ripple through him.

"Hm," Severus answered with a quietly amused hum, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth as she struggled against him. He squeezed his fingers around her throat just that bit tighter; he could feel her pulse thudding under his thumb and fingertips.

"That doesn't explain how much of a little whore you are. Do you normally act like such a slattern towards people you want to fight?"

Swallowing, she realized, was not happening right now. She could breathe, but he had complete control over that.

"Do you normally get off pretending to be the big man in charge? Got to be a real fantasy for you. Just once someone takes you seriously, sees you as a threat."

Despite her very suggestion, Bellatrix was well aware that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep anytime soon and she was well aware that no amount of wishful thinking would make this a figment of her imagination; luckily for her there was little to no wishful thinking lingering in her mind to begin with. It was there to some degree but perhaps more in the sense that she wished she hadn't wanted him at any point, that he hadn't wanted her (and with the memory of the previous night clear in her mind's eye and evident in their bodies and they room they presently inhabited, she was pretty certain she could call it that) because, in the end, it would have made it easier on both of them: they wouldn't be here, one lonely man and one lonely woman whose worlds collided in the least likely of manners. Not that she would like to think of herself as lonely but what was it, in the end, that had brought them down together in a bedroom above an old pub? What was it that had them tangled up between thrusts and grunts and nothing short of debauchery if not that?

She felt him shift on the bed, felt the way the mattress seemed to drop slightly on his side, but didn't think too much of it until she felt him reaching out to her and just that touch seemed enough to startle her, to send a chill down her spine.

Slowly but steadily she turned just enough that she could glance back at him over her shoulder, but whatever she might have meant to say seemed to have gotten lost along the way. However, the way her brows knit together in some form of confusion was quite telling in itself; what was he thinking? That was one of many questions that crossed her mind.

Severus met Bellatrix questioning gaze and he held it while he turned his hand inwards and ran his fingertips back down the very spot he'd just lightly touched with his knuckles. Bellatrix was right: he was still here because he wanted to be. He could have easily left last night after he was done with her; he could have shoved her aside, got dressed, walked out the door and slammed it behind him without a second thought.

But so could have she. She had a husband, after all. Beyond that, Bellatrix was no stranger to being cruel and reckless with other people. She could have up and dressed and left him feeling used and lonely in the old inn. She could have walked out laughing that shrill, unhinged laugh of hers. She still could. In fact, it occurred to him, as he foolishly let his hand wander from her shoulder down the length of her slim, bare arm, that she could choose to turn on him in ways that could leave him seething and recoiling.

Then again, he thought to himself, so could he. He could penetrate her mind if he wanted to. He could scope out the recesses of her most private thoughts and use them against her. He could grab his wand, which was on the bedside table next to him, and press it up against her throat and threaten her in ways that were as cruel as he'd seen her threaten others. And he knew she could exact the same kind of punishment on him if she wanted to.

He hadn't, though; and neither had she. Where they could have been savage towards each other with magic and cruel barbs, they'd instead been savage with each other's bodies and Severus would have been lying to himself if he thought he didn't want that primal sense of feeling so alive rushing through his veins again.

"Come here." It wasn't a request; it was a quiet but firmly issued command.

What are you doing?, was the thought that crossed her mind as his fingertips trailed her skin but she didn't voice it. She watched instead, only watched because for a split-second it felt to her as if breaking the silence would tear the whole scene apart and she wanted, she needed to know, she needed to figure him out and to figure out what was on his mind in ways where upfront invasive attempts would do nothing but cause them to end up with their hands pointed at one another. So though her lips were parted in anticipation of a word or a question, it was he who broke the silence.

His tone was clear to her, but why should listen? There was undoubtedly a moment wherein she considered turning her back on him fully by virtue alone of refusing to comply to any sort of command issued by him under any circumstance, but what else would she do then, when they were alone, the two of them, and there was nothing else to effectively distract her from his voice?

So she allowed herself to roll onto her back, slowly but steadily, exposing pressure marks along the side of her neck as her hair fell to the sode, and then turned to her other side; all the while her gaze did not leave his and though in any other situation her next question could sound aggressive or irritated, it lacked those traits this time- her tone and her gazer betrayed her and easily gave away her confusion:

"What is it?"

For a moment, Severus thought Bellatrix was going to dismiss him, maybe with a scoff or a sneer, and turn away. That was fine, came the pinched thought in his head. He'd just turn away, too, and pretend he hadn't said anything. Maybe he'd lie here, watch the sun rise through the small parting and in the moth eaten holes of the tatty curtains, then get up and get dressed and get out.

That'd be a great deal simpler, came another, more collected thought. But no sooner the thought was in his head that Bellatrix was turning towards him and not away from him. He caught sight of the marks he'd left around her throat from last night - marks he was going to make sure to charm away from her skin before they parted ways - with a quiet sense of triumph.

He shifted properly onto his back to more comfortably face her. Hands resting on his middle, his head turned towards her, sheets tucked haphazardly across his bony hips. At Bellatrix's question, Severus studied her eyes and then her lips, and he lifted his hand and briefly brushed his knuckle across her chin before nudging her chin up and away to get another look at the bruises.

Severus shifted again, this time on his side and he propped his head up on his hand, elbow resting on the pillow. He raised his other hand back to Bellatrix's throat and he placed his thumb and fingers precisely over the imprints on her neck; as if he was checking the imprints against the size of his hand, to see if the glove fitted. And, of course, it did.

"We'll have to do something about these," he remarked conversationally.

"Pretending?" Severus gave a quiet snort of amusement, then pressed his lips by her ear and murmured in a quietly dangerous tone, "I could snap you like a twig if I really wanted to."

Smug though he sounded, he was being serious. He could snap her like a twig if he wanted to. Luckily for Potter, Severus enjoyed playing with her the way a cat plays with a mouse it's caught.

He let her hair go with a shove and grabbed her by the shoulder to spin her around. He backed her up against the wall with his hand now snatching her throat.

"You really ought to be gagged."

"And yet you don't," she managed to say, her lips against the wall before he's turning her around, pressing against her. That familiar surge of fear (or was it arousal) swept through her, and she found herself smiling despite the circumstances.

But that was Jane for you. As far as she was concerned, he only got to do this because she wanted him to. She got her payback later, when she was with her boys. Besides, she got off on this. That part was always important to remember.

"But then you'd miss out on all the fun." She won't let him scare her. "And I think we both know how much you get off on me verbally abusing you."

open rp post #002

OOPS SORRY FOR MULTIPLE POSTS GOSH

IT'S OK, BB <333

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Perfect!

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