Actions

Work Header

Meraki

Summary:

The best thing about Tom Marvolo Riddle is Harriet James Potter.

Notes:

Because. These violent delights have violent ends.

Work Text:

 

TOP MINISTRY OFFICIAL TO WED HOGWARTS GRADUATE IN THE WEDDING OF THE SUMMER!

Tom Riddle, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, has announced his engagement to recent Hogwarts graduate, Harriet Potter. Before starting in one of the most successful terms in the Ministry of Magic, Mr. Riddle had a very industrious teaching career at Hogwarts under Severus Snape’s tenure, as well as seminars at both Durmstrang and the American school, Ilvermorny. His students described him as fair and strict, tenancious. He believed learning was an incredible gift and often encouraged his students in the same manner. He is quite accomplished even prior to his Ministry career, having won accolades for his multiple magical theories and potion making. His career at the Ministry has flourished, arguably one of the best politicians of our age. As well travelled as Mr. Riddle is his fiancé hails from England, she has both ties to the Potter’s and Prince’s. Harriet Potter, very much a serious and scholarly young woman herself, her teachers had high praise for her indeed. Although still young, she was in the top five percent of her graduating class and is an accomplished quidditch player, helping Slytherin in a seven year streak for both the House Cup and the Interhouse Quidditch Cup. The wedding is slated for July 31st at the prestigious Malfoy Manor, close friends and patrons of Mr. Riddle for years. It’s expected to be the social event of the year, let alone the summer.

His day is ministry, ministry, ministry. He deals with bureaucracy at its finest, red tape and charm, the lightest unforgivable known to man (his Imperio would make Gellert Grindelwald weep) and the means and way to make everyone bend to his will.

Now, he knows how to apply just the smallest amount of pressure to make the avalanche. His mistakes are buried right alongside a cracked stone.

The minister sticks to his right, grin wide and natural on her face, her trademark pendant flashing at the same time as the cameras.

“We’ve been handed a remarkable gift today from the Wizengamet, with a vote of 33 to 17 we’ve succeeded in turning over an antiquated law regarding the might of all magical creatures. When I impassioned the masses earlier this term we had no idea that victory would be so close. I’m ecstatic to see that we are truly representing the magical community of Great Britain and we look forward to expanding not only our natural right to practice magic but to not be punished for it by adhering to these outdated laws.” She smiles again, radiating charm and grace. She’s held the position for one term already and her recent poll numbers have jumped up 5% with this win. She’s practically won her second term.

Tom is pleased, naturally.

He guides Amanda to her offices after the press is handled and is even more pleased as he passes by his portrait. Those bright blue eyes dim complete, heartbroken. Tom lets satisfaction sit heady, joyous in his stomach like he’s had a fine meal, a well deserved drink and a fuck. It’s not too far from the truth most days.

He stands Amanda behind the desk, pretty as a picture, useful as a tool. He pours himself a small drink, unusual but celebratory. Now the landslide has started, his tedious work, his undermining, his utilization, everything he has worked for to get to this moment. The start of everything. The beginning of the end. The sun sets behind the floor to ceiling windows and it is glorious in Tom Riddle’s eyes.

It isn’t long before Amanda’s husband collects her. He and Barty Jr. exchange pleasantries, congratulations. A handshake when Barty would like nothing more than to get on his knees, but he would never. Not anymore.

Tom sees them down to the floos of the atrium, safely to their own manor like he does every night. He likes to keep an eye on all his most important things and Amanda, as blank as she became, is one of them.

He bypassed the floos himself, breathes fresh air and victory on the steps of the ministry. Tonight feels like change, vindication. He stops by a small stand to get lilies for Harri, then apparates home.

One of the older elves answers the door, well dressed in somber black. “Master.” Tom likes the sound of that word after today, would like it better from the lips and mouths of the public that he manipulates. But he’s learned about culpability and string pulling from the best, he’s learned to operate from where it’s most beneficial.

Harri, dear sweet Harriet, in stocking feet stands before him in the entryway.

He hands her the lilies and she wandlessly summons a vase and water for them. Her eyes on his while he tells her about his accomplishments, his wins and gains. He enjoys her attention the most, undivided and completely his. She smiles and congratulates him, leads him to the dining room where her dinner awaits him.

This is routine, this is everyday life. This is the best part of his plans if he’s really honest with himself.

He plaits her hair every night, unspeakably domestic. She sits in front of him in the master bedroom and when he’s done those kill-curse bright eyes look up at him, to catch the dark rust in his like a fractured kaleidoscope.

He smiles. She smiles back, straight white teeth that can’t help but bring all his blood to boil. In rare moments like these, he feels like she’s mocking him, she’s challenging him by showing those pearly whites. She closes lips immediately, a lightness in her eyes that begs him for soft touches and not the violence he can show (will show, if she can’t cross her t’s and dot her i’s).

He fucks her every night as well, positions and holes, one after another, until her body is painted with bruises and she starts to flinch away from him. He can’t seem to tame the beast that he was between sunset to sunrise. Not with her. Not with the moon shining in through all their windows, not painting her light.

His nights and his mornings are Harri, Harri, Harri.

Harri sits straight up at a quarter till five, as expectant as The Prophet every morning. She struggles with the throws for a moment, confusion that follows her like an old friend. She tightens the smallest fraction when Tom touches her shoulder but she relaxes when she see his eyes.

“Breakfast, yeah?” She’s seventeen
again, only in the wariness of her eyes, and she’s trying to hide from him. His hand lingers down a smooth arm, she sleeps naked and the manor always has a chill. His eyes zero in on the shiver in her chest, the steel in her bicep.

“Later, darling.” She’s aware this morning, more so than she’s been in awhile and she grabs his wrist when he uses it to push her back down. He moves his body over her and she’s got her strength and determination and they are rising right along with the sun. It doesn’t matter. Tom’s been dancing with her for years now.

“Harriet, dear sweet Harri…” There’s a precipice of patronization that he’s extended, up and over. She cuts those eyes, forever those eyes, if she only knew where his weaknesses were. He places a sleep warm palm over her throat, closes his eyes as he feels the first swallow, that first tremble of rapid pulse stumble under him. He slides down until he can make room for himself in the parenthesis of her legs.

He likes her hairless, smooth and sweet like when she was younger, and he remembers vividly seeing Harri’s cunt for the first time and thinking that this seemed like love. Or something very close to it. She’s still slick from the night before (dinner, drink, fuck) but he doesn’t use her like that. He’s slower in the morning, like the creep of the fog that comes in sometimes over the hills. She doesn’t know how to stop herself and he can feel that iron will melt, her bleeding heart opening itself back up.

Her nipples are forever sensitive, and he likes to take them into his mouth, he likes to imagine sometimes that there is a nourishment here that he would never allow to actually happen. His secret, furtive fantasy of her rounded with his child never makes it out of the bedroom.

But it’s humming pleasantness in the back of his mind, while he sucks and bites at her chest, licking a path from one dusk rose nipple to the other. She moans a little, teeth digging into a delicious lower lip and he finally feels her thighs tighten around him, her hips cant up to meet his. Like a spell brought to life every morning, he does this for her.

He lowers himself down her body, open mouth kissing her skin, and she tangles her hands in his hair, fingers still so unsure in the morning if this is something she still wants after all.

“Tom, Tom, Tom.” She chants his name, breathy and low, her throat hinting at the abuse it had taken not eight hours earlier. The litany of his name falls from her mouth like drops of rain. Like she’s begging and damning him in one breath.

He usually rewards her good behavior from the night before in the morning, and when he’s trapped in the clutch of her thighs, the ever wetness of her center smeared around his mouth while his long, lovely fingers tap, tap, tap that spot in the vice tight clench of her, she knows this is the softest he’ll be. He works her clit, tongue flat and wide and then suck, a swish and flick that has never been so good. He reaches up to touch her, the swell of breast so tantalizing from this angle.

He likes to keep her on the edge, her lips puffy and sore, her clit, bitingly raw. He licks, light as butterfly wings until she can’t stop from moaning and bucking underneath him. He takes her wrists in his hands, tight, tight, tight, he wants her to carry those marks all day. He keeps them near her hips and she’s scratching her own skin just to get closer to him. He holds her down and eats her out, until her chest is flushed red and the brightness in her eyes beams out at him. But she doesn’t come. Not yet.

He’s got her legs over his shoulders now, slick smearing between them, his mouth running along the inside of her thighs and he sucks hard while she scrambles and jolts to get her skin out of his mouth. When he pulls back he sees the imprint of his teeth, can taste copper and the sweat of her.

Her eyes, vivid green, Avada Kadavra life-taking green, flash violently at him. It’s been twenty four hours since her last dose.

He Legilimens quickly, wandlessly and trips into the chaos of her mind, she hates him, hates herself more, can’t understand why she continues to stay with him, love him, still loves him more than she hates him. Oh, that swirls around the empty cavern of his chest, soft and pink like her insides. She’s strong this morning, more than she’s been in a while and he’s reminded of the young girl that was nothing but steel and determination, and he wanted.

He wanted very much.

Entwined as they were, he wouldn’t, couldn’t continue without her by his side. He fights deeper inside her clear, beautiful mind and he’s honestly shocked at what he sees. She could never fully hide from him, and her time on the potion dulls the reflexes that she had spent years honing at Hogwarts. But she fights his descent inside the privacy of her mind, strong like before. His tenacity cannot be outmatched by hers.

He pushes her down once more, wrists caught vice tight above her head, the weight of his body over hers, his will dominant in all things. He takes one hand to her throat, that innate fear in her overrides everything and he can finally see what she’s so desperately trying to hide.

Thoughts that she should never have looping around and around her head, get out, leave him, leave him, hide, hide, packing and unpacking a bag, over and over and over again, galleons from his loose change being hidden, slid slowly under loose floorboards, her face a mixture of terrified and determined, and finally he sees her own plans.

The emptiness in his chest returns.

He stops moving entirely and she freezes with him. He’s overcome with an anger so strong that he rips himself away from her. He feels the air around him tighten and whirl, vibrate with his indignation.

These years he’s given her a wonderful life, parties and dresses, jewelry and travel, as close to love as he could have got. She would never have any of this without him. Without his mercy. He’s never seen so much doubt in her. Not since he started the latest trials of these potions, not since her last attempt years ago.

He smiles, that razor wire grin that she flinches away from. He knows now the potions have worn off completely because she’s silent, no begging and no apologizing.

“I didn’t think we would have to repeat this lesson.” Screaming and crying, and her body bent, and her shoulder dislocated and all that blood, dripping down knees and between legs, canes and cages. These images flash through her utterly terrified mind. He follows her thinking, greedy for her in all ways. He tightens his grip on her wrists, feels the bones keeping her protected.

It feels like it takes less pressure to break her wrist than it does to break bread with her at the breakfast table.

She sobs, and he takes his eyes off her to lean his head back, to breathe in this punishment, to revel in it. She starts now.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you have to believe me. I’ve been good for so long.” Those tally marks that he’s been keeping blow up like matches. Nothing but kindling now. The panic in her voice soothes somewhat, enough for him to crest the blood lust of his emotions.

Her body is turned away from him, as much as she can with him between her legs. She sobs, mouth bitten and wet, cradling her limp hand to her chest, looking like a wet dream to him. She knows better than to kick at him, to try to find safety in this house. His house. She cries, tears finally, finally falling over. She held out for much longer than he thought.

He pushes her legs apart roughly and every choked off cry is heavenly to his ears. When he enters her, slides every inch of himself into the vacuum of her he stays in her mind as well. He likes to bracket her body with his, suffocate her with his presence. He likes to feel her wetness, knowing that nothing in the potion encourages this. This is completely his Harri, still. And she is still wet, still takes him in with nothing but her own will.

She rocks her hips, her mind a cacophonous mix of yes and no, pleaseand please don’t stop. He’s never gotten off so vividly, lost in the confusion of her thoughts. He feels the plushness of her, that slippery wet cunt grab him, kissing him back in and he feels the spark that she can’t stop, feel her soreness, feel the way he’s grinding into that primed clit, and please, no, Tom, please don’t make me come, please let me come, please no. He slows down, grinning and dripping sweat and other body fluids on her upturned face, goes in for the lushness of her lips.

Her mouth is a barred entrance, a gate he must obliterate through. He pinches the inside of her thighs, hard, skin grabbing pain that makes her gasp every time, and it’s like slipping into a warm bath, like slicing a knife through ribs. She sobs, a lovely sound this early in the morning, even lovelier than the moans and gasps and whimpers from earlier. She groans, submission coming to her so easy now, so beaten down under the weight of her vow, her promises. She lets him slide his tongue inside her, like his prick and his will. And when she tries for docile, he moves one hand to push her arse harder on his dick and the other to wrap around her neck.

She startles, she can’t help it, something so primal she knows to obey him. Her fear intoxicates him. He’s been know to choke her to unconsciousness before. Many times. Before her, he was never a man that had to use his hands, before Harri he never liked to feel bones break underneath him, muscles scream and quiver under his might. His magic has always done that for him. But he can’t stand to have a conduit between them.

She tightens all over and he groans, low and deep, and he can feel that she feels the vibrations in her very soul. She’s scared, beyond turned on, beyond the rational thought that slips out of her hands by breakfast time. He fucks into, harder, meaner, bird bones fluttering underneath his hand, he watches as one lonely vein in her right eye pops, and she tightens again, panicked, worried. She doesn’t want to die, no matter the tatters of her life now, she doesn’t want to die.

It pushes him close, that one little thought, and he takes the hand off her throat and puts a thumb to rub at her swollen clit. She pulls two labored breaths in before she rolls her hips up and arches that perfect back, pumping him like she never wants him out of her. She shakes around him as he follows her into the abyss.

While she’s still laboring, still trying to pull all that oxygen he’s denied her into burning lungs he reaches over to his locked bed stand, a flick of his wrist and he’s pulled it open.

The syringes were his idea, most effective when she’s so far off her dosages, like now. He grabs one, still breathing heavy himself, and with the close of the drawer, she opens wide, bloodshot eyes.

“Tom, please, Tom, I’ll be good, I’ll be so good, I’ll be your good girl!” She tries for seductive, but it’s terror making her voice tremble, fear making her hands shake. It’s still his mouth that makes her legs tremble like that, and he smiles, slow and awful, shaking his head at her theatrics and flinging her good hand aside when she tries to stop him.

“I know you will, darling.” He jams it down, right into her heart.

Like mother, like son. But this time he intends to keep what’s his.

She doesn’t pass out from this. She keeps her eyes, awful looking this morning, on him and he’s still inside her mind, that little place he’s carved out for himself there, and she won’t break eye contact with him until she’s gone. Her pupils dilate, love, love, love flowing through her body, and he knows his girl is there when she smiles (no teeth) up at him.

He sweeps through her mind one last time, clear and empty of everything but him, Tom, my Tom, everything, Tom, Tom, Tom. He’s satisfied. He pulls her broken wrist toward him and she’s confused for a moment, unsure of why she’s in pain. He just smiles, knows she won’t ask any questions, but fear creeps along her spine, she can’t remember, not with his love in her system, but she will. And they will continue.

“Good morning, dear.” It’s her sweetest voice, worshiping the ground he walks on. She kisses him, passionately, her life flowing through this kiss, her tongue trying to make up for its earlier behavior. He loses himself, quickly again and the only reason it stops is because he pulls away.

He slides from between her legs and rolls her on her belly, he wants to fuck her again badly, he doesn’t know where all this tenacity is coming from. He slaps one cheek, bright red palm and she moans and arches her back, sexy thing that she is. His cock is soft, wetly laying against his thigh. It won’t even twitch at her again. He slaps again, harder, feeling this sting on his palm. His eyes lose focus, thinking about earlier, thinking about the bag. His hands turn into fists for a moment when he thinks about her trying to fight him about the potion. He can actually feel the red creep up.

He pulls her to him, arse curving to him, but he pulls her straight, back to chest with molecules between them. He pulls her off the bed, nothing on them but light and liquid when he flicks the French doors back and slams her on the granite table on the terrace. He steps back, waiting.

She doesn’t try to stand up, just grips the round sides of the table with her good hand. She stays still, she knows.

Her eyes are panic stricken, one still bloodshot, both brimming with tears.Terrified to be alone out here with him. She knows it never amounts to anything good. This is a punishment zone for her.

“Harriet.” He stops just to hear her gasp and swallow.

“I didn’t-“ He brings his palm down sharply on her thigh. She whines and whimpers, the naked wings of her shoulder blades trembling violently aware that worse is to come if she doesn’t play this right. Even beyond the befuddlement of the potion, she knows that to her bones.

He can see strings of slick when he spreads her legs. Sees his release creep out of her. He runs his hands over her, as ravenous for her body as he is her pain.

She tried to fight him over the injection, that’s two days in a row. She’s fighting it. His thoughts whirl around each other, immunity? A bad batch? Longevity? She’s been on it in some form or another for over seven years, his very own potion, mixed with, well almost love. He’ll consult some texts today, speak with some specialists. She’s still under the effects though. He’s still got time.

“I’m sorry, Tom. Tom, I’m so sorry. I’ll be good, I’m sorry.” She’s shaking and crying, her hand will have the roughness of the stone impacted on it with how tight her grip is. He likes to think that the volatile nature of his ever shifting moods is on purpose, to keep her on her toes. His mouth forms a harsh line when he looks down at her, at her eyes when she twists to try to see him. It’s just her.

It’ll always be. Just. Her.

“You’ve been a very naughty girl, Harriet. Very, very naughty indeed.” His old school teacher voice, calm and reasonable. He had used it on her for the entirety of his term there, she didn’t respond then like how she does now. She turns back to the stone, choking her sorry’s down, swallowing the whimpers that always work themselves out of her bruised throat. She makes one last attempt to stifle her hysterics, and nods decisively.

“I-I was, I’m a very nau-naughty girl, my Lord.” Oh, how that is like balm to the blisters in his soul. How his girl is above all things, his. He purrs, possible with the warmth knocking around inside him, he runs hands down her back, her flanks, pulls her up so he can grab and squeeze her terror tight breasts, nipples so hard and hot in his hands. He pushes one leg up, slides right inside her when she tightens over the scrape that occurs because of it.

His knuckles scrape over the stone, and he can feel blood blossom but he pushes harder, longer. He grinds his hips into hers, the bite of the table making her push back on him.

“I know somewhere inside Harriet, that you will understand what I am about to tell you.” Wisely, she stays quiet besides the grunts and whimpers that she can’t stop from his fucking. He rises off the hot curve of her body and puts a hand in her hair, grabs tight to make the arch of her spine more pronounced. “I will fucking kill you before I let you leave me.” He slams her head down once, quickly, violently, following through with his body. A small pool of blood comes from where her cheek tears against the unforgiving stone. He keeps her head there. His body bent over hers to speak in her ear.

“There will never be anywhere you could go that would give you shelter from me. I would find you in any corner of this world.” He shakes her again and it reverberates through her body, right around his prick and he groans at the same time she whimpers. “Listen to yourself, so wet for me, only for me.” He fucks into her and the squelch of her is so, so loud in the morning light and she sobs again, hurt all over, but she grinds back against him, leaking nothing but love. “You’ll never be free.” He doesn’t have to add the of me, it’s heard already.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I do those things.” She shakes and screws back on him, he grinds her head back into the unforgiving stone, anger chasing his orgasm out of him. She does not get to come yet.

He takes her by the hips, rubs her body over the stone when he pushes her off, down to her knees before him. He’s sweating, the mist of the morning curling around his hair and ears. He can’t quite keep his breath calm, not with the fire and brimstone that she brings to his surface.

“Open your mouth.” Now, he can see the terror swirling around the love in her eyes. She tenses, muscles tight but she stays right on her bruised knees and opens her mouth. The grit and stone of the table have made an impressive rash from her breasts to her belly. Tom can see the tiniest smear of blood from her abrasions and his knuckles. He can plainly see the bruises forming impressively around the tear on the left side of her face. The scar on her forehead peaks through it all. And even that can’t make his cock twitch anymore.

He leaves her there, trembling and waiting, naked and open, bloody and raw and when he turns to look at her from the French doors, she’s never been so obediently beautiful.

His virility potions are locked in a plain box in his closet, glamoured so they are seen only by him. With how willful she’s been lately, he definitely didn’t want her getting any ideas.

It’s already at work by the time he comes back out to the balcony.

She doesn’t close her mouth to swallow, but he knows her in all ways and the widening of her eyes is proof enough to him of the terror that sits deep in her bones. He pushes himself right in, past tongue and molars, past gag reflexes and disobedience.

He pulls back.

And he goes right back in, harsh and wild like he hasn’t come in ages.

His thumbs have a strong habit of lodging themselves right underneath her eyes, and the blood on the side of her face makes him slip along her wounds, makes her look savage this morning. He takes her hair again, one handed once more, and pushes her down until he can feel the length of him in her throat with his other hand. Her throat tightens, and he moans at the feeling, wrapped around something that is so essential to her livelihood. She doesn’t dare put her hands to his naked thighs, push nails in to warn him of lack of oxygen. She takes her punishment like a good girl.

He never comes from choking her on his prick, he does it like he wants to though, until he can see the white of her eyes, the fluttering of her lashes against a purple tinged face.

He pulls all the way out and lets her suck in great deep breaths of precious air. Hacking and coughing as he pushes right back in.

He does this over and over until the sun has completely risen over the hills.

She’s taken to saying, Please, Tom, please, I love you, between the shorter and shorter breaks, sometimes she can’t even get the whole sentence out and he smiles at her like a well loved pet, indulgent, lazy.

His thighs are wet with her, bullocks drenched in the bloody spit of her, the foam of her retching. He stays in one second too long on the last one, enough that she goes completely limp and he lets tight hands loose and she falls heavy down. He takes in the beautiful sight of her too still body before casting a strong Ennervate and she comes up gasping, clutching at air.

He shoves her back down, his body hungry for her again, instantaneously. He covers her body, hands running along warm skin, summer in England, humidity clings to her everywhere. He shoves her thighs apart, fingers plunging into her pussy, she’s not the same dripping wet that she was but he plays her well, is tender in his finger fucking. He wants her wet, always, forever. And she dances at the end of his fingers like she always does, lost in how her body will always react to him.

He breaches her other hole with only the slick that he slides his wet palm through. She cries out, not ready, not stretched enough even with the night before. She’s tense, her body can’t accept him, not when she’s on edge like she is, not when she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He takes her roughly like that, bare knees on bricks, the sound of her in pain the only thing he needs to hear right now. She can’t catch herself with one hand so she gets pushed all the way down, her whole front taking the assault. This tiny little hole stretches wide around him, her rim bleeding white against the rest of her skin, and he fucks against the resistant with everything in him. Harder. Harder. Harder. He jerks her up on her knees, swats even harder than the fucking, at her arse, her hips.

“Be my good girl, Harriet. Be good for me.” And she cries and says she will, she’ll always be, she’s sorry, she loves him, she wants to be so good for him.

And he comes. As violently as he fucks her, he comes and comes inside her. Doesn’t immediately pull out but when he finally distances himself from her back, tenderly pulling his prick out, he watches his come slide and slide and slide out of her.

He puts his finger in the gape, mixing his come with blood from the small tears inside her. He doesn’t get up, just leans back over her, slides his fingers inside her soaking wet cunt. Tender. Worshipful of the way she takes him home, over and over again. He rolls her forward and over, back dragging against the brick when he slides inside her again.

“Tom, Tom, my love-“ he takes her mouth, desperately. Licking the filth that he’s made inside her, trying to reach every part of her with lips and tongue and teeth. She moans, pulls hips up again and he rolls them so that she’s on top. He won’t let her mouth go, catches her scraped tits with his hands, squeezes and pulls, grabs them and will not grab her hips.

He makes her work for it.

She’s slow, sluggish at first and he pinches a plug out her right breast, catching nipple and flesh in his angry fingers, nails scratching scores across already vulnerable areas. She jerks on his prick, sobs into their open mouths but her hips pick up the rhythm. And he feels the gush of fluid from inside and outside of her, she’s slipsiding in the mess they’ve made. He can feel the swell of her clit against his pubic bone, can feel her grind and rock toward her peak.

She’s sliding right alongside the underside of his cock, long slides that make him white knuckle clench her tits to make her jerk on him harder. He wants her sweet rose nipples in his mouth, wants to taste her sweat and love, not just in her mouth, but all over.

She’s rocking him so close he thinks he’ll come before she gets there but on one downswing she tenses tremendously, whine low and long in her throat. She clenches, tight, tight, tight around him, mouthing thank you, thank you, thank you as her body shimmyshakes all around him. She’s still thanking him right when he blows inside her again. He raises up, pulls her by the neck down harder on him and tries to make her taste the spunk in the back of her throat he just shot in her.

He’s. Finally. Spent.

He rolls over quickly, slipping softly out of her. He gets her on her back, pushing up her thighs to see his mess. Oh, how he wants still.

But. Her plans.

He flings her always from him and stands. She tries to get back on her knees, but she’s only managed to one side, pushing herself up one handed. He aims a rough kick to her unprotected ribs, the flat of his foot hitting her squarely back. “Don’t get up.” He walks around her shivering form, eyeing her completely. “Where is the bag, darling? The galleons?” She closes her eyes, and swallows with a wince. She takes too long to answer for him.

He sends a Crucio through her this time, greedy for her spasms, and the blood and spittle that flies out of her abused mouth. She shakes and shakes, keeps going until he’s sure she’s going to shake apart when he stops.

She answers immediately.

“T-T-The at-t-tic and f-f-fourth flo-o-or bed-d-droom in t-t-the east wi-i-ing .” Her voice is wrecked. She still shaking with both hands brought up to her breasts, legs clenched tight together.

“Get on your hands and knees.” She’s not so out of that she begs hims with pleases and sorries. She simply turns, keeping eyes on his feet this time. She keeps her injured hand held protectively to her chest, so he squats down, palm and eyes run over the ruin of her body and finally lands on her eyes. “Both hands, Harriet.” For one second, one tiny infantisimal second it looks like she starts to say something. He frowns. Narrow eyed confusion. Slips right back inside of her mind like coming home. Empty. Suspiciously empty. Not even her thoughts of him circle around each other. Her mind fades from black to vibrant red to bruised pink, his name echoing along empty chambers.

He pulls out of her mind as he stands. Watches her, face impassive. She keeps her head down, tears dropping and dissolving into the brick below. She favors her left side, trying and failing to keep the weight off her injured wrist.

He fights every atom in his body, pushes the screaming urge to eviscerate her will, to break her body down to its barest form, to maim her, to bask in her agony. He pushes this all down with every bit of his considerable strength.

“How long have you been fighting the effects?” Her body is as tense as it ever is, shoulder blade wings so sharp when she’s all hunched over like that. He raises her body with his will, slams her down on the table, hovers over her in an instant. “My treacherous wife. You’ve taken my kindness, my benevolence, my mercy and burned it to ashes.” He stands back, fighting, again, against himself. She swallows fragile, lips and chin trembling violently. She rolls her eyes toward him, slowly, terribly deceptive, he sees that now.

She hold her head back and laughs, one short bark of pure humor, a smile on her face, miles of teeth and it reminds him of their wedding picture, a snapshot, her before he ruined her.

“Your kindness? Your mercy? Look at me. Look at me, goddamnit! Your wife.” She sobs on the word, sobs on her choked emotion like she sobbed around his dick. “I’m nothing to you but a hole, a pretty face, a mindless ear.” She sobs again, and cries and cries and he remains stone. He is the rocks that formed the edges of the world, the rocks that broke backs. “I love you. I love you. I wish I could stop, I wish I could hate you but it’s like hating a limb. It’s like living half a life. Please, please Tom. I don’t know, I love you. Why are you like this? Why does it have to be like this?” It would be better if she was yelling, if she was filled with her own quiet rage but the words fall softly, tiny arrows that hit every target.

He raises her, eye level with him. Goes into her mind with a vengeance, goes into the muck of her feelings, her self hatred, her doubt, her crippling need for him. From the very first moment he saw her, bathed in his colors. His. To the sweet agony of waiting for her, waiting to bind her officially to him, because she was his, the whole time she had been his and he had been biding his time. The first years of proper marriage and she was alive and he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand to let anyone see her love and life and happiness. Everything she was was his, hadn’t he made her and molded her and breathed life into her from the very beginning?

Wraps his mind around her own objectively, a distance he didn’t think was possible but his will is strong, is iron, is endless. Sees where he made his first mistake, and his second, and his third and his fourth and oh, the long list continues, continues on until he arrives right back into this moment.

Prepares himself for the agony that is to come. For them both. The only way to fix this, to put them back together so their jagged edges click right into place, to make her remember pieces, the beautiful perfect moments, but not the whole.

And he says,

Obliviate.

And hopes her mind is as strong as his.

Series this work belongs to: