Deadly Nightshade

And the lovers whose lips would excite thee
Are serpents in hell.
(Algernon Swinburne, Dolores)

She has you face-down so she won't have to look at the impure thing that has sprung from her illustrious pureblood family tree.

Her quill scrapes over your back again, leaving an ornate, curved line of fire intersecting with a maze of others. Pressing your cheek deeper into the duvet, you give a noiseless gasp into the brocade-covered down. It burns, not like a knife would, but a deep, lingering scratch that sometimes doesn't cut down far enough so she has to return to the start and dig deeper. It sends trickles of heat up to the nerve points at the base of your skull, and down into that other pulse point between your legs.

The blood tickles as it runs down your side to leave a dark patch among drier, darker ones on the coverlet. Tickles in a different way from the tongue that follows the line she has carved, first a damp, warm exhale of breath, then a soft wet touch that soothes and inflames, silk against sharpness, lovely just as it is terrible.

It's so... complete it drives the last thoughts right out of your mind.

~

...and it's really, really better this way, don't remember, don't want to, plucked off doorstep, vigilance be damned, Portkeyed off to Merlin knows where, roughed up with mocking leers and handfuls of curses, seconds-worth touches of Cruciatus, flashes of don't, don't want to, don't want to die, not *die*...

...don't, don't become the newest martyr of the Order, don't be another name in Mad-Eye's litany, they're dead, all *dead*, don't want to, not *me*, not like Dorcas Meadowes, wonder... wonder did she meet death so bravely, did she, like in Moody's tales, did she, did she really, does anyone?...

~

The coverlet under your cheek is wet, but even if you were aware of crying, you could not say whether from pain and anguish or... not. But you're floating - boneless, mindless - lulled into a web of stings and bites, of touches with fingers, tongue, wand, hair, resting happily under her body that holds you down, prevents you from acting.

Your hands, crossed at the wrists, lie above your head, fingertips against the headboard, and really, they should be tied, but aren't. The cruel welts that criss-cross your arse burn where she has settled down on them, clamping her thighs around your hips in an additional liberating restraint.

She moves her hips above you, very slowly, and her wetness is bathing your abused flesh with the same inflaming caress her mouth is lavishing on your back. Heat sears through your core with every move, and each presses you deeper into the rough bedcovers, Slytherin green woven through with sharp silver threads, fuelling the friction between your legs. The silver threads graze your nipples until they're hard and raw and aching.

You smother a keening noise in a mouthful of cloth and give yourself over to the intricate dance of quill and lips and magic. You can't see the runes she is carving into your back, but you feel the hot glow of their power.

~

...not a coward, not you, you aren't, you really, *really* aren't, good Auror, calm in tight battles, faced hags on killing spree, goblin rebels, Knockturn renegades, smugglers in Chimaera eggs and Unicorn horns, no coward, battled Death Eaters - *Death Eaters* - but over *wands*, not this, no coward in battle, not *you*...

...but not like this, cowering on your knees, no wand, alone, no *wand*, no magic, hands tied, torque spelled round your neck - no morphing, no magic - *alone*, not Meadowes, not Moody, tied up, no hope, mind churning over horror stories, Death Eaters - they do *things* to Muggles, Muggleborns, Aurors, but not you, not you, please Merlin not *you*!...

~

You squirm furtively under those ungentle hands. No matter how hard you try to focus on the quill tip burrowing under your skin, to blank out the pressure that begs for completion, it just ties you ever more tightly into a loop where both intertwine to drive you to madness. You're almost glad for her naked feet and ankles around your thighs because they are preventing you from spreading your legs further to get more contact with the blissful rubbing roughness of the coverlet.

Experimentally, you struggle against the restraining limbs, only to provoke a stinging slap to your rear and a fingernail cutting along one of the deeper welts across your shoulder. The slap jolts right through your core and wrings a needy whimper from your lips.

In sheer frustration you rub your thighs together, desperate to increase friction. It results in a wet, squelching sound, a testimony to your need, but no relief. You slump down, boneless, and once more bury your head in your arms.

~

...sneers, leers, went straight for Imperius, not even worthy of torture, masked sneers, relief - not me! not pain! not Meadowes! - shame, Imperius, try to fight, *try*, you did before, you blocked Kingsley, well on a good day, you can resist, but *one*, not now, too *many*, fight one, fight next, too weak, too tired, why *me*, can't...

... you're not Moody, not even Moody could, mind raw, shaking, *fight*, not another, not another, can't, not even *Moody* could resist, neither Crouch, just a clumsy junior, not strong like *them*, just *you*, not enough, another - *another* - not your fault, not yours, not yours...

... you float happily, nice among friends, sit down and speak, you're absolved and happy, happy, no sense of time, chatting nicely - Moody, Order, Ministry - talk to good people - Hogwarts, Potter, Weasleys - no sense of time, just tell them - Aurors, Kingsley, Harry, always poor good Harry...

... so sorry, *sorry*, imagine Dumbledore's fury, like at Dung, poor Dung, but not you, not your fault, absolved by Imperius, can't blame you, can't hate you, *please* Dumbledore, it's not your fault, not yours, not *yours*...

~

She curves the quill upwards and just below your neck executes a sleek curve that ends right inside the searing path of an older cut. Two lines of fire flow into each other, deepen, and a bloody trickle runs down on both sides of your neck. With a final scrape, a signature flourish, she finishes her handiwork and lowers her mouth to catch some of the blood on her tongue.

The quill meets her discarded whip on the bedside table, and then both hands run down your inner thighs, sliding down the sensitive planes of skin where thigh meets hip, and down again until sharp nails come to rest just below your opening, just enough to tease, and grip you ever more firmly when you try to wiggle your hips to make those fingers slip inside you. But they never, never do.

You thrash in despairing abandon, and feel her moves accelerating above you, burning, no, *scalding* your arse and becoming ever more forceful. At last, her whole body *tenses* around yours, a spring coiled almost to breaking, knees digging painfully into your hips, splayed-out fingers whose nails claw at your shoulders.

Then her upper body stretches out on top of yours, a languid weight that is pushing your face into the bedclothes, stifling your surprised hiss. Even through the blood-tinged fire burning in your back you feel the smooth, cool curve of her breasts, and their tight tips. For a few short seconds, light-headedness interweaves with agony into an exquisite sensory tapestry where your heartbeats, your *blood* are almost one, slick wetness above and below you, and it's *almost* enough to deliver you from your torment.

Almost.

~

... alone, door opens, shadow framed by shadows in the doorway, kissed by torchlight, darkness, darkness incarnate, your blood, mother's sister, battled in Ministry, different now, dark shadow mother never mentioned, pained shamed silences, black warrior, mother's blood, mother's fear, mother's sister, monster, torturer, Death Eater, killer - Sirius, oh Merlin, Sirius! - madwoman, aunt, black blood, yours, *yours*...

... woman walking to you, lewd snickers, others grinning, takes your *hand*, should fear but don't, not enough, mother's half sister, your *aunt*, your blood, leads you off wrapped in Imperius calm, into chamber, *her* chamber, *bedchamber*, black smile, pushed down on bed, clothes Vanished, hands running over your back, monotonous soothing hands, purring, calm, happy...

... takes *off* Imperius, takes *out* whip, black quill, black hair, black blood, no spell, you should fight, you *should*, but you don't, you let it *go*, and it all goes to hell from here or someplace else...

~

And then she pulls back like the charmer's snake rising up from the basket, and slides off the bed, tugging you after her by the arms until you wobble on trembling, buckling legs, shaking all over. A wand flick Accios her Death Eater robe and she throws it over you, pulling the clasp shut around your neck, and the coarse fabric rubs your hypersensitive nipples and it makes you groan and struggle pitifully.

She holds you upright with one hand to your shoulder, and for the first time you see those features clearly, a fine-boned, gaunt face made harsher by bitter lines around mouth and eyes, a mass of night hair that would soften the visage of a demon, eyes ringed with madness and shining with passion. Your blood, and no familiar trace you could lay claim to. Only when those darkened lips come to rest on the side of your neck above the torque, you feel blood thrumming against blood through negligible layers of skin as if it was - again - surging to become one.

Then the lips recede and her free hand runs over your crotch through the robe, cruelly, provocatively, and your head falls back with a whimper. You buck against that hand in animalistic desperation, only vaguely shaken by the plea that escapes your lips.

Thin fingers grab your chin, and that slender mahogany wand comes to rest between your breasts, pulling the robe over them painfully taut again.

"If only you were pure," she hisses, harsh syllables burning through you, the first words spoken this night. "If only you were... *worthy*."

~ ~ ~

The spell envelops you and Apparates you with a familiar, sickening lurch. You crash into a hard wooden surface. When your vision clears, you find yourself thrown against the door of your own cottage, alone, right where the Death Eaters had abducted you hours ago. In an almost unrecognisably dry whisper you give it the opening password and stumble inside.

You collapse on the hardwood kitchen floor, arching, fists pressed between your legs, fingers working furiously, wracked with hysterical sobs. Release cramps up your calves, haywires the nerves of your spine, running through you with all the insistent greed of a starving Hippogriff feeding on a dead rat.

The sensations recede very slowly, leaving you splayed awkwardly on the ground, shivering and sticky in the crumpled battle dress of the enemy. And still you can feel a faint echo of the craving, so deep down as if the compulsion had been carved into your bones instead of your back, as if her spiked touch had seeped right into your very essence.

Finally, you draw yourself up to sit with your arms hugging your knees to your chest, and you stare down at those shaking hands and wonder, who *was* that woman who wore your skin today, who - like an unicorn coaxed with a particularly delicious morsel - let herself be drawn to darkness?

She must have seen right through you from the start, seen that stripped of the fancy shifting power, mild amusement value and pretentious Auror title, the only thing left is a cowardly, intimidated, *uncontrolled* thing, so hollow that even her idealism rings empty.

Oh, what would Molly Weasley think, what would she say if she could see you like this!

You just want to hide, drown yourself in the shower, down a chestful of healing potions and wear concealing robes for a year, but you know you can't. Your wand is gone, and so is your magic, and you've heard of magic-suppressing torques that make you sing shanties backwards or poison your blood or twist off your head when you try to get them off. And that lattice of runes on your back could be anything from an overt lust spell to an enslavement charm to a time-delayed death curse.

The thought of telling Moody, or Dumbledore, or - Merlin protect you - Kingsley not only what you did under the Imperius, but what you did *after* should be enough to wish they had killed you.

But it isn't. And that's the worst of all.

Worthless, indeed.

~ finis ~