Warning: The Following Story contains scenes that could be potentially triggering to certain readers. Seriously, if you're still at the age of Butterbeer, I recommend coming back to this story when you're old enough to drink Firewhiskey. Reader Discretion is advised.

The Wilting Rose

.o0o.

Your body ignites beneath her lips, the sensual kisses raining fire across your cool skin, and you feel as though you would burn in the deepest flames of perdition. You would not mind, as long as she burns by your side. Some would call it sinful to be so carnal in your youth, yet sometimes when you find the right person, that one person who causes your very soul to writhe in blissful agony, you can see no conceivable reason to wait. But sooner or later, you always find the reason – the reason not to love.

Now that you look back through the ashes of history, you realise why it is that your epic love story was doomed to fail. There were too many trivial details that, had you not been blinded by her otherworldly beauty, you may have seen and thus spared yourself much heartache and pain.

What has there been about her that you could not fall in love with? Ruby locks cascade down to her tapered waist in silky waves, opalescent eyes glimmering like priceless sapphires set in startling contrast against her pale skin. But how could you have known, how could you have seen, that a flower as gorgeous as she could hide such poisonous thorns?

A girl like her only came once in a millennium, challenging you on every level, stubborn and wilful, making it impossible for you to not fall head over heels in love with her at first sight. No man, no woman, no god could tame her, and you knew this from the very start, yet for some reason you deceived yourself into thinking that you can. The coiling phoenix that lent her its fire always spurred her to fly to new heights, willing her to defy all laws and restrictions. She rises with you at her side, and never once do you notice her straying eye.

You never know where it went wrong or when it is that your fantastical romance began crumbling to pieces.

So you lie awake at night, wondering if perhaps your passionate flames burned too bright, too fast, expending all that fuels it before it could be immortalised.

Or is it simply that she is an unfaithful bitch who slept with your best friend.

Yes it's definitely the latter.

You can still see it whenever you close your eyes, the perverse sight of her milky flesh wrapped around his deep chocolate skin, a gross depiction of Yin and Yang, of the concepts of darkness and light. You see him mount her, just like you did when you walked into her room without pausing to knock, and your teeth begin to grind as you see him take her as a dog takes a bitch.

Bitch.

You feel wiser now, certainly, for in her promiscuity she's shown you that when you open yourself up to someone, when you expose to them your beating heart, then that is when you offer them the opportunity to hurt you, to reach into your chest and leave it hollow.

She's taught you this too late, though, and you know that she's already had her chance – and taken it – to screw, and screw, and screw until there's nothing left to screw with.

Delphin hasn't been her only conquest. There have been others. Many, many others. She is a true temptress, a mistress of whom Aphrodite herself would be proud. But like all Succubi, she overreaches. She should have never, ever gone after your brother-in-law.

She should have never ruined your sister's marriage, her life, as she had yours.

Her hubris will be the death of her, and it's the key that you've used to open the doors to her destruction, a smirk across your face even as you twist it in the keyhole.

It's led you to tumbling into your bed that night, with her beneath you, her body writhing as clothes are shed and tongues do battle. You burn the last of your love, your desire, that night; you reduce it to ashes in the tantric heat of her pleasured screams and the slapping sounds of flesh against flesh. Her exotic flavour is like the richest chocolate upon your lips, and you lose yourself in the sensual feel of her legs wrapped around your back, taking in as much of her heady scent as you can. Her moans are a melody to your ears, and the look of satisfaction and victory in her eyes makes this moment all the sweeter.

You smile as your fingers wrap around her slender throat in an iron grip, your climax ripping through you as you tighten your hands, slowly and purposefully, each nail digging into her skin just deep enough to break it. You grin, just as she realises her plight, and then she's struggling, her frenzied slaps and kicks feeling like the caress of heaven against your flushed form. There were tears in her eyes, tears of betrayal, as she desperately fought for air.

Ironic, that the betrayer be the one betrayed in the end.

She tries to fight you, stubbornly clinging to life as she rakes her claws across your naked back, leaving streaks of red in her wake. You never did expect her to go quietly though; she was too much of a lioness to have not resisted the Angel of Death.

"Scorpius, please," she chokes, raspy breath playing across your swollen lips.

Damn you, go back to Hell already.

You lose it as your name leaves her lips, and you hold her throat down with one hand, letting the other scrabble across the bedside table in search of your knife. The fight leaves her eyes at around the same time that her eyes leave her body, in gouts of aqueous matter and sticky red, but you aren't done. The knife keeps descending as though it has a life of its own, and you lap at her bloody cheek as her chest becomes a macabre hollow.

You stick your hand into her chest and rip her heart out, laughing as the sluggish streaks of blood strike you in the chest and face. You toss them aside, both knife and heart, and your hands slide back into her chest, finding ribs and yanking at them till they break, one by one.

There would be no more chasing fireflies for the two of you, and as much as the world would look on and proclaim your coupling to be a modern day retelling of Romeo and Juliet, you know that that will never be the truth. You slide off her desecrated body, padding across the floor and avoiding the puddles of blood, before sinking into your chair and thinking of what is to come next.

Tonight, you just snapped, and now you're lost, but your heart is Black, and already, the gears of your mind are turning, telling you that this is nought but an experience. Your kind, pure and proud, has never been meant to mingle with those filthy and born of mud, and you find yourself wishing that you had heeded your parents, and grandparents, when they all warned you against the temptations of this girl and her dirty blood.

You sit at your desk, her blood still wet against your bare skin, trickling down in slender ribbons, and you wonder if any will dare to come after you for what you've done.

So you shake your head and scoff, rising from the splintered chair and dipping your fingers into the splattered puddle of half-congealed blood upon the floor, smirking a little as you catch sight of a lone eyeball rolling out from under the bed. With your fingers, you write the final words upon the wall, a last tribute to what are the chronicles of Scorpius and Rose, and you dress to leave, careful not to squash the eye beneath your bare foot.

The words remain, dripping and smudged across the peach-painted plaster, simple, elegant, and redder than your own hands.

'If this is what I can do to someone I love, I ask you to find me, so that I may show you what I can do to someone you love'

A/N: I did warn you that this was going to be rather hardcore.

A big thank you to Lokilette for beta'ing this piece for me.

Written for Round 6 of the Third Season of Quidditch League, in my capacity as Chaser 2 for the Falmouth Falcons. The genre I chose to work with, as per this round's task, was Horror.

Prompts: Fantastical, History, Keyhole