Third Law Of Love

There is a tremble in the air.

Sufficed it in her hair. Her hair smells nice, like tangerine and apple juice. And as I move onto her she whimpers. The porcelain lips that have once forsaken mine's have lost their innocence, moist warmth that tingles and reveals to its full, pinkest softness. Her brother might have her hair but her touch is translucent and rare.

And her hair may be red but as I lower my hand to her passageway it's a light, curly auburn brown. And her legs might be wrapped around my waist, but they are loose around my hips. Her toes may wriggle but her feet are still, like hanging limbs, forgotten and broken. Her breasts are supple but small, fitting in my palms. My mouth travels upon her neckline as she breathes, and her breath has taken away. Her heart might be massive but it's hard to grasp.

"I don't love you," I whisper. It's not something a girl wants to hear but I say it anyway. The whisper wavers across the room and towards the heavens like a simple statement, fact.

"I don't love you either," she whispers back, but as she closes her eyes as ecstasy reaches us both, me first, then her, I know she tells a lie. The tears are rolling off her cheeks.

"You're hurt," I merely tell her, pressing a thumb against her skin to smear the tears, highlight them, grazethem on her cheekbone.

"In more ways than one," she tells me, and escapes to the floor, her head gashing across the hard surface.

There is a tremble in the air. The air is trembling, seething.

"I told you this wasn't going to be - exclusive," I tell her defensively. She knew. She had to know.

"Exclusive?" she says from below. "Have you been seeing - other girls, then?"

I don't want to tell her, but I do. She makes me say things I don't want to say. She makes me feel things I don't want to feel. "Yes," I tell her. "Yes," I repeat, in case she refuses to hear.

She brings her legs up to her bare chest and raises her head. Her features are expressionless but I know her heart is curling and dying inside. At least, that's what I think at first. But then, she smiles. "You're ruthless."

"Thank you," I answer, but I know this is not flattering, because the restraint of my anger is faltering. "Did you think I was going to fall for you, Ginny? Did you? Did you really think I gave a damn?"

"No," she sighs. "No. I tried to, but I knew it was all a lie."

"Then why did you do it? Why did you hang onto me for so long?" I want to know.

Her chin wobbles. "Because I can't stand having nobody love me."

"But I don't," I tell her.

"Yes, but it's better pretending then not having anything at all."

It's a sorrowful, truthful, real voice in which she speaks.

I don't answer. I don't think I ever can.

"Which girls are you seeing?" she asks, raising her head. She is shivering. I look around and grab the nearest clothing I can find - my cloak, and hand it to her carelessly. She takes it without another glance or protest and wraps it around herself. She looks vulnerable, like a child whose father never came home from Christmas.

I am the father, and I won't be home for Christmas.

"Some," I answer vaguely.

"I want you to be with me," she suddenly says.

"I can't," I tell her. "We're too different. And I can't handle being with just one woman. I don't even love you."

"Or think you don't," she murmurs.

"No, I know I don't love you."

"Can I make you love me?" she looks at me desperately. She needs someone. She needs something back, but she doesn't know what it is.

"I don't know," I tell her. "I don't know what love is, and to tell you the truth, I don't ever want to find out."

"Why not? I heard love is great." I like how she smiles when she says that. Like a hopeful embrace clutching her lips. "I heard love makes you float, I heard love can make you fly, I heard love can make you do anything you want."

She tells it like a fairy tale, which I don't believe.

"Anything?" I ask curiously.

"Anything!" She begins to close the buttons on my cloak to keep her warm, and jumps up. "Love can do anything!"

"It's just a fairy tale," I tell her wisely. "Something everyone tells each other to make them sleep at night."

"How do you know it's a fairy tale?" she challenges me the next morning. She glares. I like it when she glares too. It makes her look furious, but once you touch her insides she can be gentle.

"Because I know," I tell her restlessly. "My father never loved my mother. He only married her because she was part of the purebred portion."

"Well," she says stubbornly, with a defiance of determination. "I am going to teach you that love is real, Draco Malfoy!"

"See if you can," I tell her confidently. "But I doubt it."

She grasps me by the upper-arms and captures my lips with hers. There is a more prodding sensation now that she is kissing me, now that we have slept together. It makes me yearn for more, but there is no love. There is only lust and I know it is only lust that keeps me gripping onto her. She lets go and I glare this time.

"Did you like it?" She tastes her lips with the tip of her tongue, dissolving the inner-taste of my mouth.

I feel breathless. "Of course I liked it. Any boy would. Is there more?"

I do that to piss her off. It works almost instantly. She looks as if she has a sudden urge to smack me hard on the mouth, but then recollects herself.

"When I slept with you, you said you wouldn't be like this," she says, throwing spit in my direction. "You said that you wouldn't be aggressive and ask for more."

"I didn't force you to sleep with me. I merely told you that you could."

She laughs, upturning her head, and her hair glowers beneath her shoulders. "You gave me permission, did you? Don't act like I am a slave, Draco. I am not going to get ticked over sexist remarks. Especially since you begged me for it, and I ended up agreeing."

"Not true," I whisper.

"It is true. This was just something we both needed. And now you want to let it go?" she demands.

"I don't know."

"That's your answer for everything." She turns around, and with her hair rising behind her, she leaves, her footsteps echoing still through the hallways.

"I have forgiven you for yesterday," she announces in a proud manner the next midnight that we meet each other in the damp storage room of the dungeons.

"How noble of you," I reply in sarcasm. "So, are we going to screw, or what?"

I expect some sort of anger, anything to satisfy my Slytherin needs, but she only grins at me.

"No," she says.

"No?" I question. "Then what do you suggest we do, exactly?" I ask, confused.

"Talk," she answers. "Why, do you not want to?"

"Talk about what?"

"Talk about anything. Ask me something."

"Anything?" I raise my eyebrow.

"Anything," she says.

"Are you still in love with Potter?" I ask curiously.

She takes a sharp intake of her breath. There are many emotions transfixing her chest, but I can't distinguish them, and I am almost sure she can't either.

"I don't know," she says finally.

I mimic her in a teasing way. "That's your answer for everything."

"Tell me what you're thinking," I tell her as she lies against me. Her back feels wet. She doesn't say anything, so I comment.

"Why is your hair wet?" It smelled of peaches, and her ivory-colored skin was wet with liquid at the shoulders.

"I took a shower with some guy," she says, her eyes closing.

Something lunges at my chest. "What?" I sputter in disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

"If I wasn't, what would you say?"

"I - I wouldn't care," I lie.

"You're lying," she decides.

"Yes," I answer. "But - were you?"

"Of course. What did you feel when you heard me say that, Draco?" she asks softly.

"I felt - I felt -..." I gesture.

"You felt envious," she tells me, advises me. "It's one of the many things of love."

"I don't love you," I argue. "I don't."

"You think you don't," she corrects me. "But you do, somewhere, love is trying to explode but you won't let it."

I shove her off of me. I don't want her warmth, I don't want her knowing, and I don't want her. "There is no love."

"Can I try again?" she asks.

I don't answer. She kisses me again, tenderly at first. A moan catches in my mouth, I remember the last time, and it seems far too real to be a memory. Her lips press harder into mine and I let her lean over me, her hair tickling the sides of my face, water grazing my neck. "Do you like it," she murmurs, her lips parting only centimeters from mine.

"A lot," I say.

"Etch it on your heart then," she tells me.

"No," I say, shifting my head, disapprovingly. "I don't want to etch you in my heart."

"Not yet," she tells me. "But I'll make you."

"How?" I ask.

"I don't know. Do you think I can?" she asks.

My words falter into the air as I say them. "I don't know."