Separated by Hate... Bound by Love...

Chapter 1 Two Snakes...

Braedus held Betony close to him and pressed his lips to her temple. Her unmoving body was a dead weight as he lifted her, carrying her up the pavement towards his father's house. She didn't seem to be breathing, and Braedus couldn't find a pulse. This scared him. The sun was shining brightly, as if mocking them. Her eyelids fluttered, but only for a second as he propped her against the house in order to open the door. "I love you, Braedus," she whispered.

"I love you, too," he said as he reclaimed his hold on her and carried her inside and to the nearest empty bed, which turned out to be his own. "Don't leave me! Stay with me, Betony. I can't lose you now..."

Present time...

Betony sat hunched over her Potions text, looking up at the instructions that Professor Snape had written on the board. She had her elbow-length black hair pulled back into a ponytail, so that it would not get in the way of her work. She sliced her Mandrake root carefully, measured out half a teaspoon, and tipped it into her bubbling cauldron. She stirred the brew three times clockwise, and, in accordance with the instructions in her father's old potions text book, she added another stir counter clockwise. She smirked in her typical Slytherin way, knowing all too well who the text had belonged to originally. She also knew that the Potions master had no idea she had it, and nor would he find out. She had placed several concealing spells on her precious text, so that anyone who looked at it, other than herself, would just see an ordinary edition of the book.

She could hear Braedus Cathey grinding his teeth beside her, and she turned to stare at him. "Do you mind?" she whispered fiercely. "That's really annoying! Not to mention, you'll end up breaking your teeth!"

This comment earned her a dirty look. She turned back to work on her potion, which was turning the desired pea-soup green color.

"Time's up. Bottle your potions and bring them to my desk," Snape ordered brusquely.

Ladling the potion into a vial and labeling it, she rose to take it to the professor's desk.

She heard her fellow Slytherins laughing and then a loud crash. Turning to see what was going on, she saw her friend, Kevin Longbottom, lying on the ground. She narrowed her eyes in anger, but said nothing.

"Five points from Gryffindor for sheer clumsiness. Longbottom, clean it up," Snape growled.

She continued towards the desk at the front of the classroom. Snape eyed her carefully. "Potter," he hissed.

"Yes?" she asked, clearly unafraid of him. She had no real reason to be. He didn't pick on her the way he did on Lily. He reduced her sister, who was in Gryffindor, and two years below Betony, to tears on a bi-monthly basis.

"Looks just fine, put it on the desk," he commanded, his face showing no approval despite the compliment. During her first two years, the name Potter had caused a fair amount of problems between herself and the Potions master, despite the fact that he was her Head of House. He had eventually come to realise, however, that she was extremely studious and cared about her work - naturally, not before she had suffered much embarrassment at his hands.

"Thank you, sir." She was smiling slightly as she returned to her desk, where she retrieved her equipment before heading back to her private dorm. Well, semi private anyway. She shared it with Braedus, but they barely bothered one another. Since the attack on Hogwarts, almost twenty years ago, each house had its own Head Boy and Girl. She and Braedus had this role in Slytherin.

Her mind drifted back to the previous year, in Hogsmeade, when she had finally decided that she had had enough of his nonsense and kissed him. She had been smitten with him since third year, and it didn't feel as though the feelings would die down anytime soon. He insisted that he didn't feel the same way, but she regularly caught him staring at her. He had suffered several embarrassments - at the hands of her sister and Archie Weasley, her cousin. Ron and Hermione's oldest boy was also, as most Weasleys tended to be, in Gryffindor.

She saw Braedus speed past her, shaking his long black hair as he went. He paused and half-turned towards her. "Well, are you coming or not?" he said, his deep voice echoing in the dungeons.

"Yes, I am. But you seem to be keen on racing, so I figured I'd just let you get there first," she retorted, somewhat annoyed. She eyed her potions partner carefully.

"Well, hurry up anyway," he said, scowling at her before turning and continuing his flight to their common room.

Upon reaching it, he mumbled the password - 'Peanut Butter Beans' - and rushed inside. She flew in on his heels, and immediately rounded on him. "What the bloody hell is your problem?" she gasped, panting for breath. She had only narrowly being hit by the portrait as it swung closed.

He shot her another dirty look, but sat down at the large desk they shared. "We have dinner, Head duties, and homework."

"Yes, I know all that, but it is Friday, after all. I have a date, as it happens, and the last thing I need is you yelling at me," she said as she sat down to begin her homework. "I don't have that much, either, I got most of it done during my free period. Term began only two weeks ago; you need to calm down." She sighed.

"Yes, and as you well know, this is our N.E.W.T. year," he said, raising one sculpted eyebrow quizzically. He studied her, his ebony eyes boring into her green ones.

"Stop that! I've already told you, Legilimency won't get you anywhere. Why do you persist?" she said, rolling her eyes. "How would you like it if I returned the favour?"

"As if you could, you filthy half-blood," he fired at her. A smile played about the corners of his lips - this was a game they played quite often.

"Huh! Like you can talk! Your father was half-blood and your mother was pure-blood. Just like mine," she quipped.

This was true, to the best of her knowledge. He didn't talk about his father much, only to say that he was raised by his grandmother, as his father had been a Death Eater. From what she had gathered, his home life was very unpleasant, although his step-grandfather had been killed in their fifth year - when his father had discovered that he was beating Braedus - which must have improved the situation. They were close friends, though not as close as what Betony would have liked.

"I know. I just love getting a rise out of you," he said, his eyes still boring into hers.

She felt a blush creep into her pale face, and broke their eye contact. She didn't want him to see that she was wishing she could get a rise out of him, too, just in an entirely different way.

Her mind wandered back to their one kiss...

They were stood in front of the Shrieking Shack; they had been arguing because she had been on a date with Jacob Thomas - although the only reason she had agreed to the date was so that her friend Celestia Martin could go with Bailey Finnegan. She had excused herself early on, when it had become obvious that both Bailey and Celestia were enjoying themselves.

She walked out of Madam Puddifoot's and down the road toward Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes to get some joke supplies. Braedus had stepped out of the shadows, yelling at her. "Did you have a good time? Rubbing elbows with those three Gryffindorks? I'll bet you had a blast, didn't you?"

She lowered her head, but raised her chin defiantly only seconds later. "No, as a matter of fact, I bowed out early. They were getting along well and I wasn't there with who I wanted to be with!" she said coldly, taking a few steps toward him.

He met her, staring her down. "Yeah, and who would that be?" His breath was coming in angry pants by that point.

She looked up into his face, realising that her nose was only an inch or so from his. She grabbed his head and pulled him into a kiss.

He kissed her back, roughly, skillfully, and she felt shivers running through her body. She wrapped her arms around his neck as one of his hands pressed her against him, right at the small of her back. His other hand was entangled in her raven locks. Suddenly, he pushed her away. "Liked that did you?" he said, his voice angry and his eyes cold. He turned on his heel and left her standing there, cold wind ripping through her clothes, and cold tears running down her warm cheeks.

"Hey! Betony! Hello..." he called, waving his hand in her line of vision, bringing her back to the present.

"What?" she said hastily.

"So who's this hot date with?" he asked, eyes downward.

"What do you care?" she screeched as she rose to her feet, running to her room. Slamming the door behind her, she picked out the tightest outfit she could find. If she was going to have to go on this date, she would at least make him squirm.