Susurration

And whispering, "I will ne'er consent," consented.
--Lord Byron, Don Juan (canto I, st. 117)


Sometimes he watched her, although he didn't think she noticed.

Women like her didn't notice men like him, and it didn't matter what side of the War one were on. It wasn't that she wouldn't associate with Death Eaters, because she did. She was good friends Millicent Bulstrode, who had taken the Mark shortly after she became of age. Sometimes, she took tea with Lucius Malfoy, and on occasion, she went for walks with Theodore Nott.

She just did not associate with Death Eaters like him .

When the Dark Lord convened his supporters for a formal dinner, he would watch her from his table, far removed from hers. She sat with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, who had always considered her their daughter, looking like cut obsidian between two diamonds. The slender paleness and icy demeanor of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy perfectly framed the dark-haired, curvaceous girl with the burning eyes. He sometimes wondered if anyone else watched her, and if they noticed how she ignored her dinner in favor of the expensive wine they served at the head table.

He drank vodka with Antonin Dolohov, far in the back. They were not the intellectuals, though Dolohov had been known to be quite…persuasive…when he chose. They did not cajole and seduce with words.

They did not seduce at all.

Malfoy might have been Voldemort's angel of death, with his pale blonde hair and deadened mercury eyes, but he was a strategist before he was anything. Mad Bellatrix Lestrange might have been the harbinger of pain but her loyalty bought her and her husband rewards such as the rest of them would never know.

He had asked Dolohov once, as they sat in their plain wooden chairs drinking brandy from the Russian's flask, if he was not angered that Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange were admired and rewarded for their faithfulness when he, Antonin, who had suffered the same exile in the cold fortress of Azkaban, was not.

Dolohov had only laughed. “Surely you see the difference, yes? Some purebloods are better than others. There is no money left, no land, that could be given to the Cause from the House of Dolohov,” Antonin said. He'd raised his vodka in a salute. “I imagine you're the same, no?”

And he was. Walden Macnair had a simple, straightforward role in the Death Eaters and he was not foolish enough to forget his place. He had not Malfoy's money nor Bellatrix's mad fanaticism. When Voldemort had fallen, he'd taken a job with the Ministry without blinking an eye. He'd never once been ashamed that he was not imprisoned in Azkaban with his former comrades. Instead, he did what he was used to doing—destroying things. Animals, now, not people, but close enough that he felt comfortable doing it.

When Voldemort had returned, he'd left his job at the Ministry and rejoined his master. When the raid at the Department of Mysteries had landed him in Azkaban, he'd been rescued within weeks, along with the others. He'd served his time, and he'd come to have a bit of respect for his Russian friend for the fourteen years he'd spent locked away there.

There was something in the eyes of those who'd suffered exile and imprisonment in that dark prison—an emptiness, a lack, like something that had been taken away never to be returned, no matter how many they killed. Taking life would never bring it back to those who had sold their soul to Voldemort's Dark Army.

She did not have that look, not yet. Maybe that was why she fascinated him, because during the war most of them had gained it for one reason or another.

Sometimes at dinner he'd watch her sip her wine, her dark eyes heavy-lidded and gleaming.
Her classmates had all joined the War effort in some capacity—whether they were traitors to Voldemort's cause like that Zabini boy, or Death Eaters such as Millicent and Theodore, each had declared some side, taken some mark to brand them.

She had been marked for one thing only, and that was Lucius Malfoy's son. She had been his intended bride since they'd been children, and the only mark she would ever bear would be his ring on her finger. Like Narcissa, she would be the perfect Death Eater wife—supportive, accepting, devious, and elegant.

One night had changed her entire life, leaving her adrift in the pulsing, dark sea that made up the Dark Lord's inner sanctum.

The news had almost destroyed Narcissa Malfoy, her beloved only child dead by the hand of a schoolmate. She had screamed so loudly the sound had reverberated through the stone of the fortress, and her wailing had reminded him of the ban sidhe his mother used to tell him about when he was a child.

Draco Malfoy, one of the first casualties of the War. Caught unawares by an irate former classmate as he washed his bloody hands in the river.

At his funeral, Narcissa had demanded blood for her son's death. She had fallen to her knees and promised her service to Voldemort if he would grant her blood vengeance on her son's murderer. She had ripped the gown from her arm and bared her left forearm, sobbing, pleading for his Mark on her skin. Voldemort had drawn her to her feet, spoken softly to her, and called Lucius to attend him. Lucius had done nothing but nod, turn on his heel, and summon Macnair and Dolohov to follow him from the hallway.

“I will see this done for her,” he'd said, and had spoken of it no more. If Lucius Malfoy cried for his son and heir, Macnair never saw it. Certainly, Lucius took his rage out on his son's murderer before turning him over to Macnair and Dolohov.

They brought Narcissa the head of the boy who'd murdered her son. She had smiled in delight and had it sent to his mother. “We'll see how Molly likes it,” she'd said, a purr in her elegant drawl.

Some say she'd turned as mad as her sister, but Macnair hadn't noticed. They were all mad, weren't they? He'd noticed Narcissa's eyes burned with the fervor of death, but didn't all of them have that look now?

It was then, the night after he'd returned with that Weasley boy's head in a sack for Narcissa Malfoy, that he'd started watching her. Seated between Lucius and Narcissa, Draco's customary position, she was the fiancée abandoned before she had been made a wife.

That was when she'd stopped eating. Pansy Parkinson lost a little of her inner glow when Draco died, and her eyes started that slide into deadness.

Tonight, she was wearing a violet skirt and top, her dark hair sleek and falling around her face. The atmosphere was jovial enough in the room—they had won a victory in Christ's Church the night before, and taken several prisoners who were even now screaming in the dungeons.

The room was charmed against such unpleasant sounds at dinner, though Bellatrix was absent from the hall. When she did not attend, it usually meant someone was screaming in the bowels of the fortress, so the pleas for mercy were easy enough to imagine.

Macnair privately thought if there had not been women present (well, women who were not Death Eaters, that is), the Dark Lord would not have bothered silencing the room. So many of them enjoyed the sound of screaming, after all.

The food was decent enough—a rare, bloody steak that he quite enjoyed—and the atmosphere less tense than it had been in months. He let the taste of the steak melt on his tongue, his gaze on the young woman at the head table.

When Pansy abruptly excused herself and moved out of the room, he followed her with his eyes as she walked out of the large hall they used as a dining room. As she passed him, her eyes touched his, and he saw her lips twist slightly in an expression of disgust or disdain, and he felt his own eyes narrow in response. She turned her back to him with a sniff and proceeded out of the room.

Possessed of some dark notion, Macnair stood and followed her. He remained in the shadows as he had been trained to do and followed her outside where she stood on a balcony with her small hands braced on the stone railing.

She did not look up when he moved silently behind her. He watched the way the cool night air played with her hair, picking up strands and tossing them in all directions around her head. She didn't bother to push them back, merely kept staring up at the sky, the clouds thick and heavy and obscuring what little light the sliver of a moon threw out from the heavens.

“Did you want something?”

Macnair grinned at her voice; a combination of that snotty superiority so often found in wealthy young purebloods, and a tired, cranky tone that made her sound like an errant child. He remembered her vaguely as a little girl, from some meeting he'd attended at Malfoy Manor where she'd been chasing after Draco. He remembered she'd had a shrill voice even then.

He shook his head, although she did not deign to look at him. Her face was still turned away, arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold. It was a cool night, but she looked as if she were freezing. He watched her rub her hands up and down the skin of her arms, as she struggled to warm herself.

At his continual silence, she heaved a great sigh that put him in mind of a little toddler with a temper, and he actually glanced down to see if she was going to stomp her foot in ire. She spun around to face him, and he saw the slight sheen of tears on her face.

“What do you want, Macnair? Has the Dark Lord ordered my execution for abandoning dinner?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, face flushed and furious. “I remember that is your specialty, after all.”

He raised a brow and felt his temper stir a bit at her sneering tone. He might not have been her social equal due to circumstances beyond his control, but he was a Death Eater and she was just a young woman trapped in a dark fortress with no young prince to save her.

“Your head is safe from me,” he said, voice low. “At least, for tonight.” He smirked, stepping a bit closer to her, attempting to crowd her with his considerable height.

She laughed; the sound was wild, manic. “That's good to know.” She cocked her head thoughtfully and stared at him. “You watch me, don't you? At dinner, and sometimes in the hallway. I've seen you, watching me. Why do you do it?” Her voice had risen as she spoke until she was all but screeching at him. “Why?”

Macnair held up two hands, shaking his head. “Don't go mad on me, girl. I'm not here to kill you.” He deliberately avoided her question. “No need to go all crazy. Why don't you go back inside?”

She did stomp her foot at that, shaking her head with an annoyed sound. “Stop treating me like I'm some wild hippogriff you need to gentle,” she snapped. Her eyes were narrowed and her little hands were fisted as she glared at him. She tilted her chin to look down her nose at him (which was difficult to manage, as he was taller than her), and his temper stirred more.

“Look, girl,” he said menacingly, stalking towards her and enjoying the way her eyes widened, “I only calm the hippogriffs down for one reason.” He had her backed up against the stone railing—if she kept leaning back, she might just fall several stories into the lake below the parapet.

His hands reached out and wrapped easily around her neck, and he pulled her towards him. Leaning down, he whispered in her ear, “So I can break their necks without them struggling.”

She was not struggling, and to his surprise, her hands came up to rest on his shoulders. “I thought you cut their heads off with your axe,” she whispered, voice tight.

Somehow he didn't think they were speaking of dangerous creatures or his stint as an honest working man for the Ministry.

“I like to kill with my hands,” he said, thumbs making lazy circles on her skin. He smiled at her, feeling the goose bumps that rose on her skin as he touched her. “It's more…satisfying. More personal .” He pushed up against her, wanting to frighten her.

“Did you kill…” She stopped, shaking her head, breath rushing out of her trembling, parted lips. “Never mind,” she said, and he felt her shaking like a leaf against him. “I don't want to know. Let me go.”

He shook his head, hands tightening around her neck. “I don't think I want to do that, Pansy.” He'd never said her name before, and he liked the way it sounded. It was sweet, light, and airy—something he had no prior experience with. Things like her name were a rarity in his world. He savored it on his tongue like he had the blood from his steak—elusive, sweet, and gone far too quickly.

He especially liked the way it made her close her eyes in fear. She bit her lip, and he made a growling noise in his throat as he saw her pink bottom lip caught between her small white teeth.

“If you touch me, the Dark Lord will kill you. I'm supposed to be saved for one of the men to marry.”

He laughed darkly. “And you don't think that would be me.”

She gave him an honest, confused scowl. “Of course not,” she said, that snobby tone in her voice causing his rage to grow. “Why would you even think that? The Dark Lord would never give me to you.”

He dropped his hands from her neck to grasp her upper arms. “I'm a pureblood, you know, just like you.” He dug his fingers into the skin of her arms, liking her indrawn breath of pain. “And the Dark Lord would not mind if I fucked you three times over out here, Pansy. You're just a little whore he's keeping for some obedient little rich boy, a reward for services rendered. You…your little pretty body…” He ran his hands over her breasts while she struggled against him, “and you money.”

He leaned down and ran his tongue up her neck. “That's all you'll ever be, pretty Pansy. All you'll ever be good enough for. A reward.” He nibbled on her ear while she whimpered. “How does that make you feel, hmm?”

“Fuck you, Macnair,” she whispered, her entire body shivering beneath him as he continued to lave the sensitive skin of her inner ear with his tongue.

“Now, now, Pansy. I thought you were a lady. Too good for a Death Eater like me, right?” He rubbed his hardened cock against her, lazily tilting his hips, liking the way she squirmed beneath him.

He took a knife from the pocket of his utilitarian black robe, his body effective in keeping her pushed back against the stone railing. He watched her eyes widen as he licked the cold silver of the blade, more because she expected it than anything else.

“You afraid of knives, pretty Pansy?” he leaned his torso back enough to run the tip of the knife down the front of her soft purple top, expertly undoing the buttons so that her skin was exposed to his gaze and the cool night air.

“No,” she said, voice full of false bravado. “I'm not afraid of anything.”

He continued to cut her top from her, pushing it to the sides so that her breasts were exposed in their cream-colored silk bra. Deftly, he flicked his wrist and cut her bra from her skin, baring her breasts to his gaze, his breathing speeding up as he saw her nipples harden as the air brushed against them. “I don't believe you,” he said softly, running the blade down the valley between her breasts.

“I bet I can find something you're afraid of, pretty little Pansy.”

He teased her taut nipples with the tip of the knife, running in circles that tightened until he reached the very tip.

“ Oh ,” she said, and at the noise, he looked up.

He'd only meant to frighten her, to make her stop talking to him like some worthless piece of rubbish she'd toss in the bin, but when his eyes met hers he was shocked at what he saw.

She was watching what he was doing, and the look on her face was a clash between fear and arousal. The “ oh ” she had exclaimed had been more the latter than the former, and he met her heavy-lidded gaze with his own, the knife's edge resting lightly on her nipple.

“Don't stop,” she whispered, and her hips tilted tentatively against his. “Please don't stop.”

He thought he might drown in the sudden wave of lust, so quickly did it descend upon him. He looked at her, wondering if it were a trap, and slowly moved back so that he was no longer holding her against the railing.

“You don't want this,” he said, shaking his head. “Run away from me, little girl, before I hurt you.” He was all but growling the words at her; the instinct to finish what he'd started, to cut her clothes from her and fuck her until neither could move was powerful indeed.

She shook her head. The wind played around her and lifted the sides of the material he'd cut from her breast. “No,” she whispered, hair whipping in her face. “I don't want you to go. I want you to cut me again.”

She bit her lip, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Please.”

They were locked in a battle of wills as they stared—his lust to take her tempered by the fact he could very well be punished very, very badly for this. He had mocked her words of warning, but she was right—she was a wealthy pureblood heiress, and he had no business touching her.

However, if he had to writhe under Voldemort's Crucio , then he wanted to remember the feel of her soft flesh while he was doing it. Men like him were not often presented with women like her. Stepping forward, he caressed her with the knife instead of his hands—a mockery of tenderness and affection.

He wanted her to know this about pain and lust and wrongness , that there would be nothing gentle between them. “Last chance,” he said gruffly, and she smiled at him—a sweet, sad smile

She leaned back against the railing on her elbows and cocked her head. “Well, I certainly don't intend to stand here all night if you're not going to do anything with that,” she said.

“Don't worry, I know how to use it,” he said in a low voice, stepping back up to her with the knife raised in his hand. The clouds moved in the sky and a sliver of light from the moon hit the blade—they both stared at it, entranced.

He went to work, slowly at first, teasing her flesh with the flat of the blade against her smooth, white skin. She breathed very quickly, making small mewling sounds that he found incredibly arousing. When she was panting, he slowly turned the blade and nicked her with the tip of it. The cut went from her navel to just below the pulse-point in her neck, creating a beautiful line of red blood on smooth white skin.

She cried out, head thrown back, hair tossed about in the wind as she moaned. Leaning forward, he licked her skin slowly, from the base of the cut to the tip, ending with crimson-stained lips pressed against hers. “You like that?”

“Yes,” she moaned, shifting, and he felt her legs widening unconsciously and growled low in his throat.

Leaning back, he teased her again with the flat of the blade before cutting the fabric of the skirt so that it fell apart as well, and the wet sound the knife made cutting the silk was almost lurid. When he was finished, she stood bare-chested and dressed in the tattered remnants of her expensive outfit, wearing nothing but black silk knickers.

Going down on his knees before her, he pushed remains of the skirt off her hips to pool at her feet. Her hands were on his shoulders; she was strong, her nails bit into his skin through the fabric of his robe. He looked up at her, liking the way she had her head thrown back, liking the way the wind played idly with her soft, dark hair.

He traced the knife over her thighs, her lower belly. He started at her feet and dragged the tip of it up the smooth curve of her calf, as cries spilled incoherently from her lips. He drew patterns with it on her inner thighs, scratching red welts on her skin but not drawing blood. He traced the patterns with her tongue, and she was thrusting her hips at him as she moaned his name.

He could smell the sharp, musky scent of her arousal and wanted to bury his face in the silk between her legs. Lightly, he ran one blunt-edged fingertip up her slit and hissed when he felt the wet silk against his finger.

“Please,” she moaned, and he smiled viciously in the darkness as he moved the flat of the blade against her soaked knickers, rubbing the front of her with calculated slowness.

“Such a bad girl, to want this,” he said, eyes intent on her face. She had her eyes screwed shut, biting her lip, arching towards him.

“I don't care,” she moaned, hands grabbing at his hair. He wore it too short for her to grasp, so her nails dug into the skin of his scalp as he rubbed the blade against her.

“You're so wet,” he told her, moving the knife carefully. He allowed her the caress she wanted for a few moments before he used the knife to cut her knickers off completely.

Deftly, he twisted his wrist so that the flat of the blade pressed against her clit, rubbing back and forth, as he watched her body buck above him. “Careful,” he hissed when she moved almost violently forward. “If you want to bleed, girl, let me bleed you somewhere else.”

She was not listening, merely writhing and moaning incoherently, so he cut her on her inner thigh until he saw her blood, then he dropped the knife. It clattered to the ground between them, falling atop her torn clothing.

Macnair leaned forward and ran his tongue up the scratches, licking a slow path to her aching, wet center. He licked her slowly, tongue circling her clit while she cried out above him. There was blood on his tongue, but she was too far gone to care and he found he liked it.

Standing in one smooth motion, he drew his robes over his head until he stood before her dressed in black trousers and a plain black shirt. Bringing her flush against him, he rubbed his cock against her, growling at the feel of it. He couldn't fuck her, he knew that—she had to remain a virgin until she married, as most pureblood girls did—but he knew how to make her come, make her feel good.

“Did you like that?” he said silkily, hands at her waist, pulling her roughly against his straining cock. She squirmed in his grasp, almost sobbing in frustration, and he realized through a haze of lust that his angle was wrong. He picked her up easily and sat her up on the railing. Their height difference was such that when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up to him once more, he found the right position for his cock to rub against her sensitized clit. She threw her head back, surrendering her weight to his strong arms, legs wrapped tightly round his waist.

“Yes, yes,” she moaned, hands digging into his shoulders. She tore at his shirt as he moved against her, his cock aching for release. She managed to get his shirt off of him and forced her small hands underneath, nails finding purchase in the sweat-slicked skin of his shoulders.

She was so wet he could feel her through the fabric of his pants. “God, I want to fuck you,” he groaned, hands laced behind her back as he fucked her slit with his cock though he was still fully dressed. “Want to be inside you, you're so wet,” he muttered, moving her roughly up and down, forward and back. “Would feel so good, tight and hot…” He was practically unaware he was speaking out loud, but his words were making buck harder against him; harder, faster in her own search for pleasure.

“Feels so good, you're so hard,” she moaned, surprising him with her speech. He'd not expected her to talk, but it made him hiss and rub harder against her. “I want to come, so bad…please, Macnair, please…”

He growled again, something intelligible, and pulled her off the railing until he was supporting her completely with his arms. He pushed her up and down, her legs wrapped around his waist, and finally she came, biting his shoulder so hard the skin broke.

He followed her moments later, coming in his trousers like some randy schoolboy, face buried in her neck as he did so. “Pansy,” he gasped, pleasure shooting through him as he released himself in long, slow pulses. “ God .”

She was still wrapped around him, legs and arms grasping, breathing harshly. Slowly, he released her legs and she slid down his body. He held her a moment and then they both pushed away from each other, panting and wary as they met the other's gaze.

He fixed his shirt and re-sheathed his knife, holding out his discarded robe to her. “Here,” he said gruffly, but she smirked at him. Her face was flushed, hair a mess, and she was covered in blood and sweat—his and hers, both—but when she spoke it was in her loftily superior voice that he loathed.

“I'm quite sure I can mend my own clothing, thank you very much.” She turned her back on him to do just that, fumbling for her wand amongst the scraps and muttering a few charms. When she was finished, she looked much as she did before; remote, proper, so far above his reach it seemed unlikely he had just caused her to scream and plead with him for release.

She moved to go past him into the castle, but stopped. Shaking her head, she fixed his clothing and leaned up to kiss him. The gesture was surprisingly gentle. “Thank you,” she said huskily, placing her palm against his cheek. “That was the first time I've felt alive in a long time.”

She pulled back from him, fading into the darkness of the fortress as she left the door open behind her. He heard the click of her heels on the stone floor and turned to look back at the night sky.

The clouds shifted lazily over the crescent moon, and every now and then, he heard an owl hoot in the distance. He imagined it was the triumphant scream of the predator finally catching his prey, and he smiled in shared joy.

~ Finis ~