The Oddest of Couples

He slipped around the edge of the portrait that served as a door, grateful that the Fat Lady was absent. She wouldn´t be able to comment on him slipping out of Gryffindor tower in the middle of night.

Slinking into the shadows that licked the walls, he moved - catlike - down the hall, his eyes darting everywhere, making certain that he was unseen and unnoticed by anyone who might be prowling in the corridors.

Part of him wished that he could have made off with Harry´s invisibility cloak, to avoid prying eyes when he finally met his lover, but it would have been awkward, trying to get it out of Harry´s trunk with no one noticing him.

It would lead to far too many questions and he, for one, wasn´t willing to risk losing his chances to slip out unnoticed, when he could be stealthy and achieve his ends as he intended anyway.

It certainly would have been useful, on occasions such as this one, though.

It was a miracle, he knew, that he hadn´t been spotted by someone before.

Even when he was being as stealthy as possible, his shocking mass of ginger hair stood out like a beacon, even when he was shielded by the panels of shadows, where stone, fabric and wood bisected the angular slashes of moonlight.

Still, no one had seen him.

Or at least, if they had seen him, they had regarded him as not important enough to be dignified with attention, especially in the case of the Bloody Baron, who had occasionally drifted past him on his travels.

His thoughts flitted briefly back to the one he would be betraying most by this liaison.

Hermione.

A pang of guilt lanced at him at the thought of her. Ever since the first day they had met, he had been hers, no matter how much he tried to deny or disprove it. Even though he had initially had bitter misgivings about her.

She had seemed completely barking mad to him, with hair that stood out in a wild bush that looked like a bird would nest in it. He had almost given into the temptation to take a look to see if his theory was right on more occasions than he could count.

She had been bossy, arrogant and stubborn from what he had seen of her and he hadn´t liked her at all.

That was before he knew who she was and what she would come to mean to him...

And now...

Now, he was out of her sight, having slipped away from the common room when he knew no one would be paying attention, knowing that if she ever found out about his love affair, she would be probably shocked and upset.

He didn´t want to upset her again, especially with everything that had happened in the previous two years. The mess with Scabbers... Wormtail, the filthy, traitorous rat that he was, had been bad enough.

Upsetting Hermione again was not his intention, but he had someone else, someone he was drawn to inexorably, someone he couldn´t ignore, someone who had stolen his heart in a way Hermione never could.

They had first met in the greenhouses.

There had been people pushing, shoving and bustling around for pots and spades and the like, in the way that teenagers were always prone to do and he had looked around the faces lining the potting table and...

She had been there.

Watching him in a way that no one had ever watched him before.

Bright, knowing eyes had stared at him from beneath strangely bushy brows and he had been unable to look away.

When the class had departed, he had lingered behind.

So had she.

They hadn´t said anything to one another that first, didn´t need shallow, empty words as so many did.

Coming together, they had made love amongst the upturned pots, on the bare dirt of the greenhouse floor, late afternoon sunlight slanting in through the clear panes of the glass roof above them.

It had been purely physical.

He wasn´t sure if he could call her particularly beautiful, but she had drawn him to her, despite the grime that clung to her, a sign of her position and her role within the school as a whole.

Like him, she had someone that she was meant to hold loyally. But, like him, she also broke faith with the one who claimed her, slipping away when he was unawares to meet with her fiery lover.

His eyes gleamed wickedly at the thought of her beneath him. That was why he would never be able to resist her. The way she cried out for him, the way she felt, the way their bodies just... fit together so perfectly.

Continuing down the halls, he took a sharp left, running lightly down the staircase towards the entrance hall, where they had accidentally met the second time, without even having to search for one another.

It was a strange connection they had, he knew that much.

Without needing to say anything, they knew, subliminally, magically, somehow where to find each other at any time of the day or night, but especially at night, when the moon rose and winked benevolently down on them.

They had their secret places that they would meet and make love until they were both limp with exhaustion.

And there she was, standing in a patch of pale moonlight at the bottom of the stairs, her brilliant eyes capturing his as soon as he was close enough.

He couldn´t restrain himself, running down the rest of the stairs and straight to her, burying his face in the thick glorious mass of her hair, the pale wisps and waves full of the scent that was undoubtedly her.

The scent of nature clung to her, although how she could always smell so free and wild, when she was under the same constraints as he, he would never understand. All he knew was that she was perfect.

Her pale, sandy and silvering hair was soft against his cheeks and he nuzzled her throat as she pressed against him.

They seemed utter contradictions for one another, him so energetic, so exuberant, so... young in spirit and in body, while she...

She would never be called old, not by him at the very least, but she was experienced and older than he was, her uncontrollable silvering hair speaking her age in a way that was belied by the glint in her eyes.

Drawing back, their eyes met briefly and she inclined her tousled head towards the hall, where they had shared their last brief liaison. His eyes glittered with anticipation, as she started walking, only a step in front of him, but enough to give him the perfect view of her.

His eyes lingered on her sensually-rolling rear and he had to force down the heated desire to leap on her there and then. He would happily have taken her in the dark halls, on the staircases, in the cupboards, anywhere that he possibly could and she knew it too.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, making sure that he knew that she knew she was affecting him, the glimmer in her eyes suggesting that she was in a more playful mood than usual.

No time for pussyfooting around, he decided firmly, quickening his pace and jogging alongside her.

Looking around, to make sure they were unseen, they reached a partially open door and slipped into one of the lesser-known classrooms, pausing in a pale patch of moonlight on the dusty floor, staring at one another for a long moment.

The prelude was always like this.

It was almost a competition for them, a daring challenge to see who would be the one to make the first move and it almost always meant that they lunged towards one another at exactly the same moment.

The moment hung on the air, but before either of them could move, they froze, the sound of shuffling feet in the hallway making him whip around.

"Where are they, my sweet? Have you sniffed them out?"

Filch!

The shuffling came closer, echoed by a moist hacking cough, the sour stench an indicator that he was right about who was about to walk in on their tryst.

A frantic look passed between the lovers and she nodded towards the shadows in the back of the room, a gesture for him to get out of sight, knowing that she is the one that must face him.

Diving under one of the desks, he watched nervously as the door squealed open with agonising slowness.

The hideous old man shuffled in, sniffing the air like some kind of slobbering dog.

"Anyone here, my sweet?" he asked, looking down at Mrs Norris, where she still sat in the patch of moonlight.

In response, she got to her feet and slunk out the room, as if she owned the place.

Crookshanks had never been more proud to be her mate.