Her hair is fine, escaping out of the bands and clips and barrettes she uses to pull it off her face, little copper tendrils falling in front of her ears in short, straight lines. There is no curl to it, and he has the feeling that it wouldn't curl even if she slaved for hours over it. Despite that, her hair has life and shimmer, the sort of hair that other girls would kill for. (He knows this because he listens, and he has heard his friends and House mates say so, and they are the sorts of girls who would kill for good hair.)

He longs to sink his hands into it, to pull it out of its confining bands and spread it over her shoulders, to make of it a red-gold curtain and let it shelter him from the world.

In the dark of night, when the other boys are sleeping and the rest of the castle is quiet, he taunts himself with images of doing things to her. Of reaching out to her, of pulling her into an abandoned classroom, of sweeping her off her broom on the pitch and carrying her away. In his head she's always willing, though he knows that this wouldn't be the case if he actually tried to act out his half-formed desires.

He knows what she thinks of him.

He thinks of the way she would look after an hour of kissing, thinks of touching the expanse of creamy skin her worn robes must hide, of palming the sweet curve of her breasts, of coaxing her out of her hand-me-down, too-big shirts, thinks of kissing each pale-gold freckle he can see and exploring her body to discover the ones hidden beneath her clothes.

He wants to know how she tastes.

She is an obsession, and a dangerous one at that. He knows he hides it well; after all, no one has ever said a word about it, and he doesn't know a single person who would keep it a secret if they guessed. Everyone in this school wants to get one up on him, wants to see him fall as his father has fallen, wants to see him get his. Even his friends, even his housemates. Not one of them would let something like this slide if they could use it against him.

So his secret must be safe. He's grateful for that, as much as he can be.

He's seen the way she looks at her string of boyfriends, the sweet, shy smile and knowing eyes that promise things that they must know she won't deliver on. But knowing she's a tease doesn't stop any of them from trailing after her, or touching her when they know her brother isn't looking.

The knowledge that she will never look at him like that makes him burn.

He's caught her kissing boys in abandoned corridors, and it gives him immense satisfaction to be able to pull them apart and sneer at her, to call her filthy names and threaten her with expulsion, even if he doesn't have the power to follow his threats through.

She cursed him once, and the look she gave him as she did it made him writhe in shame even as he swore revenge.

He hates her, and wishes he didn't have to. He wants her, and wishes he could stop.

If he has ever been sorry for anything, it is this.

~*~