Dichotomy

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. – Niccolo Machiavelli

At mealtimes she hunches over in her seat, eyes lowered, eating methodically and flipping the pages of a book, a blur of words before her eyes. She does not listen to the buzz and rattle of voices around her, but lets them flow over her, breaking up the air with discordant noises as she studiously ignores him.

They are not friends; they are something more than that. What they lack causes them to be something less , however, as the subtle gestures and nuances of friendship have passed them by entirely. What is left between them is a sense of wrongness tempered by the worst sort of delight imaginable. It would make her laugh, if she could bear to think on it for long.

Minerva is quiet at school, serious and stern. There are some fellow students who would be her friend, if she wished, but it is hard for her, those casual interactions between girls that are so easy for some. They manage to ensnare friends with frightening ease, but Minerva has never learnt that magic, and they were not taught it in class.

The young witch with the dark plaited hair and deep-set eyes can do magic with perfect aplomb, but she can be brought near to tears by the intricate dance of friendships that the girls around her perform with such innate talent.

She can not make her voice do it, rise and fall in the rhythms of language so well-known to her classmates.

He is the opposite, quite gifted at magic, and at that personal interplay that so vexes her. He has a way about him, a way of charming others into gazing at him worshipfully, them missing completely the chill of dark eyes and the burn of his arrogance, the sinister presence that enveloped him.

***

She was never fooled by Tom Riddle, never.

Intrigued, entranced, a little enthralled with, yes. Fooled, never, not even when he came to her, as she knew he eventually would.

Minerva spent her Friday nights in the library, sometimes studying, sometimes pretending she was doing something else. The library had that echoing, casual silence about it that resonated louder than a symphony in her head; reminding her that the others were elsewhere, doing something far more exciting than homework. He'd found her there once, slid his body sinuously across from her, ignoring the battalions of her books on the table between them, long lanky frame arranged in the chair and a smirk on his lips. He was younger than she was, though taller, whip lean and dangerous.

“Hullo, Minerva.”

She'd never had anyone say her name like that before; slick and dark like oil spilled on ice. She wanted to walk away but she didn't, because something in her stirred and woke up at the sound of her name.

It broke the silence between them like a spell, focused intent lurking behind the lingering syllables, and he made it sound like magic….

He made her feel like magic, too, but not the kind that she should even know, much less practice.

When Minerva did magic, she liked the way the power rushed through her with a tingle, and made her skin prickle and dance. She fancied she must look at least passably pretty then; face flushed with the sweetest hint of exertion, eyes shimmering as that her talent, slumbering inside, awoke and stretched and gave itself over to her command.

This was not how Tom Riddle's magic felt, not at all. She had never heard so many shades of darkness in a word; never felt cold that could glide as chillingly across the skin as his voice.

She sank beneath the ripples of his stare, pulling her under like a current, and in that moment in the quiet stillness of the library she was utterly lost to him, and he knew it.

***

He never kissed her.

He took her to an unused classroom he had selected, one that seemed to have shrunk as the school had grown larger. A spectral light slithered in through the cracks of the door for the dust mites to cavort in; remains of ghosts, non-corporal and faint, sighing in the darkness. The light dissipated in the scope of the room, slinking around creating a foreboding silhouette to the furniture, hulking shadows making mountain ranges out of books, monsters out of wooden desks, waiting to devour her.

The only thing waiting to devour her was him . He stood across the room from her; his dark hair dark elongated commas across his forehead, the light absorbed by his hollow cheekbones, and making his eyes glow. He motioned to her with a slow extension of his hand, a slow uncoiling of motion. The light catching the square tips of his fingers reaching out through the darkness, signaling her to join him in it … whatever it was.

She had been trembling in fear and excitement, which shamed her. Her shoulders were hunched and her head bowed, as if awaiting her execution, but her lips were softly smiling and her eyes were very bright as she crossed the floor to go to him, ignoring the muted sounds of her classmates' shrieks and laughter that filtered through the crevasses on the edge of the stout oak door into the room.

Minerva never listened overmuch to what he said, though words he arranged in perfect patterns, like delicate swirls of paint on china, to placate and beguile her. A nice effort, to be sure, though she gave it little notice.

All she heard was the tone of his voice, all she ever saw was the remote chill of his dark eyes. It was enough of a seduction that he could have murmured phrases of Latin, spells that he had not the ability to perform, and they would have worked their own magic upon her.

He liked to move her hair off her shoulders, liked to trail his long pale fingers over her skin while he talked to her. They ghosted over her flesh and delivered their specter-light touches with unerring precision, pulling gooseflesh in their wake, as if the movements of his fingers on her skin were spells designed to do just that.

“Pretty Minerva. I could kill you in here.” His voice infused with a mocking amusement as it hissed at the shell of her ear. If she tilted her head just so, she could feel the moistness of his tongue…

His hands tightened for the very briefest of moments; and the blood pulsated against her veins excitedly, rushing to meet the press of his fingers, the surface of her skin blossoms of pink. “Did you know that? We think we can only kill with wands, but we can kill with our hands, too.”

Tom was very tall, and had her pressed against his body, an arm around her throat. She could feel the heat of him behind her, and it was distracting, because it was the coldness of him that attracted her interest. His lean body reminded her that he was just a boy, and she didn't want just a boy. Though this did not explain why she pressed herself back imperceptibly, though she knew down inside herself that it was wrong, even worse than coming here had been.

Tom's hand moved across her back, pressing just hard enough to tease, grazing lightly over her abdomen and causing ripples of unease—at least, that is what she thought it was—to ripple down her skin. His fingers traced the lines of her ribs, scalding hot through her robes, leaving a trail of fire in his wake like a firebrand. Everything Tom did was with that burning intensity, and it made her uncomfortable. There was a curious wetness between her legs, and her nipples were hardened peaks that cut the air as they tightened beneath his caresses.

Her pulse fluttered like a mad thing, and Minerva did not understand what he was doing, or why her resolve was like thawing permafrost under the warmth of the spring sun. She did not want this.... She wanted magic , dark and frightening, to suck her under like some vicious and deadly current. Minerva was a creature of the light, she was built to fight against things like injustice and murder and torture and death, but the siren's song of his darkness was both haunting and tempting.

Her words were edged with lightness when she spoke, quietly, hesitating. “I can't bear it, to be against you, to feel that you are warm.”

He laughed and it was a hissing sort of sound; she was absurdly comforted that he was not the spring sun, and was instead the killing winter frost just as she had wanted him to be. “Just want my cold hands on your throat, my pretty one?”

He stepped back enough so that all she could feel were said hands, now drawing lazy patterns on her warm, flushed skin. “Just want me to tell you I could kill you, do you? Answer me.”

She liked the way his voice slid into effortless command, and nodded, but said nothing. She would not speak to him again, not while he…

The first time was the scariest, though it was also the best. She thought she'd die when it happened, when her consciousness fell away slowly, when black snowflakes drifted from the edges of her eyes to herald the coming of oblivion. He knew where to press his hands, knew how to talk as he did it, so that she simultaneously feared and wanted what he was doing.

“Fall, fall, fall,” he sang, and that whisper echoed in her head as the blood slowed, as her breathing was labored from his manacle-like fingers, as she felt herself dissolve and slide away.

Is that the magic inside me, weeping, as my life drifts away under his hands...?

She came to suddenly, gulping in air, dizzy and sick from the sudden rush of oxygen and blood back into her body. He was leaning against a wall, panting as if it had been him who could not breathe, and she was shivering and frightened and then he smiled, and oh…

Minerva ran back to her room, his quiet laughter following her like the cruelest of taunts or the gentlest of love-words, and that night in her bed she though of what had happened and touched herself and came in breathless abandon in the tangled sheets of her bed.

****

She'd told herself the next morning, touching trembling fingers to the blueblack-stains on her throat, that she would not do it again.

Minerva knew enough charms magic to hide the bruises, but she didn't use any of them. She touched them, sometimes, in class and smiled a secret, pleased smile. They were hidden under the collar of her simple white schoolgirl shirt, a delicious reminder that beneath her undeniable goodness something had marked her, not forever but at least for now.

And then she'd go the bathroom and cry, a shivering mess, sick with guilt and shame for what she'd done. She spoke her intentions like a litany, like they were magic themselves, as if by speaking it she would cause it to come true.

Not go back, you're not going to go back, not again, no…

It was the very horror of it all that made her return.

She asked him, once, how he knew how to do it.

How he knew how to stop it, before her breath was irrevocably stolen forever, before she drifted away completely under his hands….

“I read it in a book,” he said with a shrug, and it made her shiver to hear him say it.

Perhaps they shared more than she would have liked.

****
As they continued, he liked to make it a game, draw it out, and terrify her so she'd want it more.

“Just want me to do it, to get it over with, don't you?” Smug, amused, he teased her with the anticipation of it, made the threat curl around her and entice her like a promise. His fingers danced merrily over her neck in an evanescent caress, skirting over the bruises that never faded.

She nodded; it was all the answer she ever gave him, that slight inclination of her head.

“Knew you did,” he said, laughing, and surprised her by leaning down to press a kiss on her tender and welted flesh.

She jumped at that, annoyed; this was not in the rules, this is not why she crept out at night, risking her reputation and her schooling, to meet him. Still, it was a sinister caress of lips-on-flesh, and that settled her ire somewhat.

“Maybe I want more…” he breathed, and the trembling darkness of his words nearly made her faint with fear. “I could do whatever I wanted with you…”

Minerva trembled like flower being battered by a storm, but she made no move to run. He began quickly, pressing those cruel and talented fingers into her neck, and there was a moment's pure relief as the blackness descended, and she thought no more of anything save need and fear.

She thought of it when it was over, every time, at night in her bed. She held her breath as she came from the pressure of her fingers on her clit, and pretended, just for a moment, her hand was his.

***
“Tell me, pretty Minerva—just a nod of that dark head of yours—do you go back to your room, at night, when you're done with me, and touch yourself?” His voice was softly coaxing, though utterly menacing. “Tell me or I shan't do it for you, and you wouldn't like trying it yourself.”

Minerva's hands twisted in her lap as she regarded him with pensive eyes, wary and untrustworthy and completely held in his dreadful thrall. She smoothed her rapid breathing out with the greatest of efforts, as if even it knew she was denying it the surcease it craved in this shadowy room. She nodded brusquely, her eyes downcast like some submissive maiden.

“Look at me.”

There were few times she heard his voice so dripping with implicit command, and she swayed beneath the power of his words as she raised her eyes to his.

“Now tell me again. So I can see your face. So I can know how ashamed you are of it.” He smirked at her, hands twining serpent-like around his Slytherin green-and-silver school tie.

Minerva drifted on soft waves of helplessness, sighing in relief, and nodded once more.

“Come here,” he ordered, curling his fingers and beckoning towards her. “Come here, Minerva.” Surely even the tempest would obey him, when he used that voice. There could be no dark magic he could not command, not when it writhed inside of him like some great serpent, spilling out of his mouth like a poised cobra, ready to strike.

She would not break her steadfast rule of silence, but in her mind the words yes, sir , echoed, making her shiver, and she crossed the room to approach him with difficulty on her shaking legs.

“Want to watch you this time,” he promised silkily, “See the way your eyes fade before you fall.” He sounded pleased; and she had to remind herself she had not spoken aloud.

His hands slid up her body, over the covered mounds of her breasts, and she whimpered but said nothing. He leaned forward as he began their ritual, tightening and releasing his fingers against her pulse, making her wait breathlessly as if she stood on the precipice of some cliff, poised to plunge headlong into the sea.

He choked her until she nearly fainted, until the falling snow fluttered gently behind her eyes, bringing darkness in their wake.

***
One day in the Great Hall, she made herself look at him.

Tonight, it has to be the last time. She has to end this, cannot give him this domination over her, though her traitorous mind chides her for even thinking of it. She's clever and bright and is bound for greater things than he can possibly deliver.

He is surprised, she can see it on his face, for she does not acknowledge him outside of the ceremony their moments together have become. Just for a moment, she sees honest concern in those black eyes, chased away by his ever-present indifference.

Surely someone notices that Minerva McGonagall is staring across the room at Tom Riddle, but no one says a word—or she does not hear it as the blood rushes through her body, through her ears, like the surf, or the way it does when she gives herself over to his malevolent desires and allows him to slowly take the breath from her, like it is a gift, like it will never be returned.

Lightly, she touches the collar of her school robes, and he narrows his eyes. There is a subtle shift in power now, as she has acknowledged him, however silently, however obscurely she has done so.

That night she will pay for her daring, and she can do nothing but wait for it, nervous and expectant, knowing it will be the last time.

***
“Why'd you do that?”

His voice is curiously interested, and he doesn't look a thing like the stone-faced, chilling master which she has come to think of him, playfully so, in her moments of quiet introspection.

She even breaks her own vows and answers. “It's ending, between us, that's why.”

He nods, though he looks unconcerned. “I thought maybe that was it. Why?” He sounds honest in his inquiry, so she answers.

“It is dangerous. It is wrong.” These things are inconsequential; merely a ploy to avoid the answer she does not want to give.

He knows it, and waves his hand in his negligent way, brushing aside her feeble excuses.

“That's why you like it, isn't it? No, tell me why, Minerva.” There is a petulant, sulky scowl as he waits for whatever answer she will give.

She knows why she's doing this, of course she does. One last time, the best it's been, the last…. “Because…you don't do it well enough anymore.”

She has always thought him smart, but his passions overrule his intelligence and he is on her in an instant, snarling like a rabid dog. “Don't say that, yes I do, you want it, I know you do…”

His hands, those hands that have taken her nearer to death than she should have ever wanted to go, they are ripping at her clothes with passionate ferocity, ripping, tearing, shredding them away.

“Show you, won't I? No one says no to me, mine, you're mine …” he is muttering and rough with her, and she remains absolutely still, head bowed and hiding beneath her dark hair so he does not see her smile.

For all his dark seductive charm and skill with suffocation, he is rather inept at the rest of it. She is willing enough to let him take her, obviously, for she wouldn't have begun this if she wasn't, though oddly she does not think he will.

He bites and scratches her skin--a bloody accompaniment to his bruises—and this she finds she likes more than if he had pushed her against the wall and done the things she hears the other girls whispering about at night in the dormitory.

She likes, in fact, that he remains fully clothed as he slides those cold fingers into her wetness, which clasps around him vise-like, capturing him, forcing him to pleasure her.

Always thought you were in control, didn't you, because you made my breath stop…

She meets those glittering eyes of his for a moment, thrilling as he speaks some language she is unfamiliar with—a slick gathering of softly sinister syllables that sing as they tumble from his full lips—as his left hand comes up to wrap around her neck.

There is no ceremony to this; he does not entwine words around her like a sadistic weaver as he is wont to do on these occasions. This time, there is fury and passion and all the things she has never wanted beneath his actions.

Except that, in not wanting them, she has come to crave it.

She does not know if he will stop, as his fingers move in and out of her body, as his other hand applies the pressure that is both familiar and new. The pit of her stomach feels as if it is dropping; the buzzing in her head increases as does the sharp twinges of desire he is culling from her with his caresses.

The black snowflakes fall in her vision; spiked and splattered with red, as if they bleed, as if they bleed for her.

His face is the last thing she sees as she falls over the edge at last; into the sea, into the dark, the perfect pleasure and the perfect pain swirling with nothing, and she knows she is laughing as it takes her under.

***

They never speak again.

She knows he is angry at her for what she did; for the subtle manipulation that led him to give her what she wanted, without killing her, when all she had seen on his face had been murder.

And all he had seen on hers had been pleasure, and surrender, and triumph.

Minerva goes about her daily schedule, and she becomes friendly with the girls in her house, and she finds the rhythm of speaking to them in the rise and fall of her breath, and it is enough, now.

Though there are nights she walks through the castle, past the room where they would meet in secret, and she hesitates, for a moment, only for a moment, before moving on.

She likes to watch it snow at night, a flurry of white flakes that covers the ground, absorbs the sounds, an eerie white sweep that blinds the eyes with it's refracted bright hardness for it is as close as she will ever come to it again, and it has to be enough.

It has to.


~Finis