Some people look at us and think he's degrading me. They think I'm sub-human for the way he pets me, the way he holds me close possessively and makes my decisions for me before I even get a chance to speak.

Obviously, they've never been in love before.

He runs his hands through my hair and over my neck because I like being touched. I thrive with it, it reminds me he does care. If he didn't he wouldn't be so intimate in public. Rape and random sex was one thing; caresses and softness was on a completely different level though.

He holds me close because his presence offers me security I haven't found elsewhere, I know I'm not alone when he holds me around the waist and I hear his voice slither across me as he addresses someone in my lieu.

Why should I have to deal with politics I despise when he knows what I want as well as I do?

Everyone assumes I fall submissive to their Lord Voldemort, but in reality he acquiesces to my every whim.

If only they knew.

It doesn't matter whether they know or not, though, I like, even love, my life and everything in it just as it is, and if I cared what the wizarding world thought, I wouldn't be, happily, where I am now.

I turned over, facing the man who held me and smiled impishly, my heart fluttering yet again as he offered me an indulgent smile before I curled closer to him and buried my face against his collar bone.