Snare

Snare

At the end of the year I made a promise to you, Potter. I think my exact words were, 'I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to my father,' and I think you've forgotten that promise.

Maybe, you think it was just an idle threat, passing from the lips of someone without the ability to see it through. Or maybe it was just a blind warning spoken in passion, the rage and despair of Father's incarceration forcing accusations and madness from me. Maybe you were wrong, because I will see it through. I will see it through to the bitter end, Potter, and you won't be able to stop me.

I know I'll see you on the train in September: I always do. Same old Potter, same old entourage, same old mindless babble about chocolate frogs and large black dogs. Oh, I'm sorry, was that frightfully insensitive? Silly me. I'll be sure to mention it more often, then. And you'll glare at me with those eyes - which really are the colour of fresh pickled toads; completely repulsive - and I'll see the strain in your every bone as your 'friends' hold you back and tell you, 'Malfoy's not worth it, Harry.' And you'll know I'm not, but you'll still stare me daggers in the Great Hall and knock my cauldron over in Potions.

Everyone says we're rivals, Potter, did you know that? The First Years all used to look at me and mutter that Voldemort's your enemy and I'm just your school rival, competing for nothing while the world's getting destroyed. They said it so gleefully that I let it pass. But it doesn't matter who you're true enemy is, because the animosity we bear for each other is enough for me to ensnare you.

Last year you seemed to hit adolescence more strongly than the others had in previous years, lashing out at everyone and everything. I know you have the fate of the world to carry on your shoulders, but the Weasel and the Mudblood do try to help you. I also know that you'll continue this way. First the death of Diggory, then your precious fairy godfather - yes, I said fairy, did you not hear about him and that disgusting werewolf? - will push you over the edge, and after so much heartache, they won't come back. They'll inch away slowly until they're hanging on to the very edges of your empty little world, huddling up with the other Gryffindors and trying to keep warm, as your ice threatens to engulf them when they tread too close.

I'll be all you have left, because I don't surrender that easily. I see that there's no hope in Dumbledore's Golden Boy, but I always hold that if you're going down, you have to live it up. I'm going to take advantage of the rest of your pathetic existence.

I'll still glare at you and sabotage your spells and hex you in the hallways, but I'll also hiss dark truths into your ear while we fight and cut your defences down. You'll crave my presence because I will be the one thing you can connect with by that point, without your friends, without your so-called family. I'm familiar to you, and you believe you're safe with me. We have a loop of enmity that does not fray or twist through time...or so you think.

I know that when I kiss you, you won't pull away, because our first kiss will be born of that obsession you have, with teeth and blood and spit and pain, and before long you'll be begging for more, because finally you'll feel again. You'll burn for me, and I will make and break you every night, consuming you, devouring you. Fucking you until your body can't stand it but you'll still be begging for more. I will have you then, when you start telling me your secrets, your fears and hopes and dreams, and I will hold you in the middle of the night as you sob into my chest, and I will laugh with my reflection when you leave.

You'll know that this is not a relationship, but you need someone, and your old reality is slipping so far away that your precious friends no longer even look up when you enter the Hall for breakfast.

You'll trust me because you always trust in my existence and my effect on you, and yet your eyes will still light with that manic fire when you first see the familiar mark on my arm and you'll tear at my skin with jagged nails to try and get it off. To you at that moment, I will be the enemy, no longer a mere distraction who simply makes your blood boil. And finally I will laugh for real, long and hard, as I clutch your wrist suddenly and pick up the seemingly innocent family photograph sitting on my cabinet. We'll be drawn through space to a cemetery - surprise, surprise - and recognition and terror will cross your face. You won't be ready, we both know that; and you won't stand a chance as my Lord's curse hits you.

And so Avada fucking Kedavra, Potter, you're dead, and with no blood on my hands, more's the pity.

I swore I'd make you pay, and I can assure you I'm going to cash in on that one.

~fin~