Catharsis [Tom Riddle]

Chapter Thirty-Five

Avalon could see a dim green glow through her closed eyelids, the subtle light of the Great Lake casting an eerie hue over the entire room. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, cologne, and fire. She shifted slightly, but her eyes shot open when she felt the arm draped around her pull her closer.

The ring on his finger, the green sheets, the pile of discarded clothes on the floor...

Memories of the night prior flooded her mind.

Oh, fuck.

She quickly scrambled to her feet, a pit of nausea in her stomach as she began frantically searching the room for her clothes. Her eyes darted to the clock on the wall: 4:35 a.m.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

There was a dull ache all throughout her body. Her legs, arms, neck, thighs... everything was sore. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror atop his desk and took in a sharp breath when she saw her reflection staring back at her-- dark purple bruises littered every inch of her tender skin.

She had to pry her stare away from the mirror before her fingers latched onto her underwear and hastily yanked them up her legs.

"Going somewhere?"

She jumped at his voice, her hands instinctively bolting up to cover her exposed chest. Her head felt as though it was going to explode as her cheeks began to burn red with her own racing nerves.

She couldn't look at him.

She couldn't meet his sleep-ridden eyes. She couldn't look at his perfectly disheveled raven hair. She couldn't watch him as he groggily sat up in his bed, stretching his arms out above him as his blankets covered his lower half.

Fuck.

There was a slight smile on his lips when he looked at the way she was covering herself up. He chuckled. "Are we shy now?"

He felt her eyes finally burn into him. When he lifted his gaze to meet hers, he expected to see her reflecting his humor-- instead, he was greeted with equal parts horror and anger. He registered the regret in her eyes and instantly felt something twist in his heart. The humor in his voice quickly faded to irritated confusion. "What are you doing, Hendrix?"

"What the fuck did we do," she breathlessly said, her voice just barely over a whisper as she hurriedly bunched the fabric of her gown and began stepping into it. She turned her back toward the mirror, grappling at the zipper furiously and pulling it up as far as she could reach, but no matter how hard she tugged, she couldn't get it to rise past the scar on her back.

TRAITOR.

She was a fucking traitor.

His eyes narrowed on her scrambling figure and he quickly summoned fresh clothes into his outstretched hand, slipping on a pair of black boxer-briefs and trousers before he got out of his bed and cautiously made his way over toward her.

"This was a mistake," she rambled to herself, her eyes avoiding his as she shakily grabbed her wand off of the floor. Her mind swam with visions of Fred... Hermione... Remus... Tonks...

Harry...

She thought about what Harry would think of her if he knew what she had just done. He would never forgive her. And she wouldn't fucking blame him. What had she done?

"We shouldn't have done that."

What had she fucking done?

Her heartbeat resided in the back of her throat as she shook her head, a mortified look in her eyes as she stared at the ground before her. The trembling in her fingers was more prevalent than ever before, and he didn't understand what had shifted between the night prior and the morning.