attraction comes from the most unlikely places,

[Ethan Hunter Potter]

They were closing in on the last couple months of the school year – and Ethan was still waiting impatiently to be cleared by the healers as healthy enough to play Quidditch in the last match, which was currently being postponed in hopes that he would be able to participate. In the last few weeks he had been running again, and trying desperately to return strength to his left shoulder and arm still, spending most of his free time preparing for Quidditch and his next follow-up with the healers, he had at least been able to keep himself busy, and away from most of his bad habits.

Aside from that, his focus was generally on Dumbledore’s Army – though lately he had been increasingly distracted by a particular Slytherin girl who he couldn’t seem to shake from his mind. After the night the two had spent together when he first returned to the school, at his attempt at a party that was just good enough to get him wasted and put his mind at ease for a while, he had found himself thinking about Arianna Zabini more and more – at first it was because he hadn’t gotten where he wanted, which was with her – but after their first hook-up it was like a whole new addiction.

Arianna had this way about her, the never-ending-confidence, a cynical outlook on life similar to his own, and a knack for sarcasm that few he knew could master, and on top of all that a body that drove him mad. For weeks after that first night together, they didn’t see each other or speak a word to one another – and then one night he had overheard her say something about a party to a housemate and that night he had gotten dressed up and made his way to that party after he knew everyone else would be long gone and wasted.

Ethan had found her towards the back, by herself to his surprise and pleasure, and he had walked up offering her some of his private flask – only the best. The two sat there and drank for a bit, making fun of those at the party who were too far gone to know what was going on, just as they had the first night – and eventually they found themselves in the room of requirement once again, but this time with a much more intense, heated and physical interaction than the first.

At first, the physical stuff had been sloppy on his end due to his still healing injuries – he actually had to stop them at one point when his shoulder collided with the arm of the couch, ending painfully. Ethan had almost thought she wouldn’t stay that night or come around again because of it – and yet she had done both. The two of them had met up more and more frequently, at late night, low-key parties where people were so drunk they paid no mind to them as they drank their share and then found themselves back in the room of requirement for the remainder of the evening.

After a couple of months of that, the two of them started skipping the needless parties where they kept conveniently running into each other and agreed to just meet in the room of requirement once in a while – dropping subtle hints to one another, a simple look where their eyes locked across a classroom was enough sometimes – always late at night, after most of the school had gone to bed. It worked out well – and he was enjoying every single minute of it – a no-strings attached sort of situation, no emotions, no relationship, no stress – just raw physical attraction and lots and lots of booze.

This particular evening, Ethan had already been in the room of requirement for a couple of hours – disappearing up there after running for about an hour after dinner. He had finished any class work he had left, read for a while and worked on some ideas for Dumbledore’s Army – all the while puffing on a joint that he continuously lit, smoked a little of, and put out. He looked at the clock hanging over the small bar that his private oasis provided – it was almost midnight, she would be there soon.

Stretching as he got up from the desk he sighed and massaged his left shoulder, which was still sore and stiff all these months later. Without really thinking about it he found himself pouring a drink at the bar, sipping it and then retiring to the large couch, sitting back with his drink in hand as he waited for Arianna Marie Zabini to arrive.

[Arianna Marie Zabini]

Arianna didn’t know what to do anymore. A fresh bruise spread across her ribs, blue and purple edge in yellow. Life sucked. She was newly returned from a fun weekend with her family. So fun. Her father hadn’t used the cruciatus curse on her this time though, so that was a plus.

Arianna sighed. She didn’t know what she was going to do. The schoolyear would be ending soon and her parents expected an answer. They were supporters now. Full blown members of The Nex with darkness in their veins and evil filling their hearts. There was time, when Arianna was young, when she believed her father hung the stars and her mother was the sun. Those days were long gone. Now, she dreaded even the thought of them.

Her parents wanted her to join them in evil. God, how cliché could they get?

Arianna was a Zabini. A pureblood. One of the last truly purebloods left in the wizarding world. This weekend her family had talked almost nonstop about arranging her marriage to another pureblood. The very idea made her want to scream.

She left the forced family fun time early—and she would never be able to tell her family why.

Ethan Hunter Potter.

That boy was the only good thing in her life, the only thing that didn’t make her blood pressure rise or make her want to curse herself into oblivion. A bloody Potter.

Arianna didn’t know whether to laugh or cry most days but with Ethan…There was something about him. He centered her. He matched her. He never, not once, judged her. It had started out purely physical. She’s been at a party, she’d had a few drinks, all very standard. Arianna never got fall over drunk, limiting herself to sipping on two glasses all night. But Ethan had come over, offering a pull from his private flask and in a moment of reckless impulsivity Arianna had taken that drink and pretended her family wasn’t completely batshit crazy, her life wasn’t about to fall apart the moment she turned seventeen, and that she actually did have the entire world at her fingertips.

And her fling with Ethan just hadn’t stopped.

He sought her out at the next party. Then she sought him out and then he, her, and round and round it went. It was nothing. It was a fling, purely physical, but damn if Arianna wasn’t enjoying every minute of it. Their clandestine rendezvous sent butterflies off in her chest and spoke to a secret rebellious part of her she hadn’t even known exited. There was something about sneaking around behind her parents’ backs with a boy they’d kill her for talking to.

That last brought Arianna up short. Her parents would kill her. Not figuratively kill her. Her parents would literally point their wands at her chest and say “Avada Kedavra” if they ever found out she was starting to have feelings for Ethan.

Well, she decided with a toss of her black hair, she would make sure they never found out.

Arianna ascended the stairs to the seventh floor, passing three times in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. On the third pass a tall, arched door materialized in the stone wall and Arianna pulled it open.

Weed smoke curled up from the joint held in the lips of a handsome boy sprawled across the far couch. Arianna pretended to ignore him, strutting across the wide spice to the polished oak bark against the wall. She needed a whiskey. She needed all the whiskey. Or Vodka. Vodka was good. Anything to stop her cracked rib from aching.

Arianna poured herself a glass of Firewhiskey and downed it like a shot. She poured herself another and gulped that down, too. This wasn’t a party. She didn’t mind ignoring her usual two drink limit here.

For her third drink she mixed rum with a bit of lemonade and took a deep breath after her first sip. It was only by sheer force of will she kept the wince from her face. She looked up, finally turning her attention to the room’s other occupant. “Potter.”

[Ethan Hunter Potter]

The silence was almost more than he could take – it was something he hadn’t been okay with ever since being held captive by Blackwell. There, silence and screams were all you ever heard and neither was a good sign. Ethan swirled the whiskey around in his glass – listening to the ice cubes clanking against the side of the cup – all the while still puffing on the joint, finally prepared to finish it and start relaxing. Arianna would be there soon and the last thing he wanted was to have to pull his mind back from the dark thoughts that he tried so often to leave behind. Finally, he downed the drink in a single gulp, all the while exhaling weed smoke from his nostrils – then reaching out and using wandless magic to summon the bottle of whiskey so he could refill the glass.

Just as he finally put the joint down – it was too small, he would roll another one in a bit – did the door finally open, with Arianna strolling through the door with a laser beam focus on the bar where she stopped and promptly poured herself a glass of firewhiskey, downing it the same way he had his own whiskey only seconds before her arrival. Acting as though she hadn’t even seen him, he watched thoughtfully as she poured a second drink which she finished just as quickly as the first – exactly what he had been about to do. Instead, he refilled his glass but after took a long swig straight from the bottle before leaning forward to set it on the table by the couch.

This thing between the two of them was odd – they didn’t hardly talk to each other, especially not about anything of much significance – and yet he found himself watching her every move out of the corner of his eye, learning more about her during every encounter they shared. When they were at a party he noticed that she paced herself more, sipping off of one or two drinks throughout the night – but when they were here, just the two of them, she let go of that and relaxed more – but tonight she was knocking back the drinks faster than usual, and it certainly caught his attention.

Finally, she looked up from her third drink after tasting it and taking a deep – almost pained or forced looking (Ethen knew the feeling well) – breath and turned her attention to him. “Potter,” she said in a way that was both a simple statement and an acknowledgement. Looking up from his own drink there was an almost mischievous smirk playing on Ethan’s features. Something about her – he didn’t know quite what it was – but whatever it was, it kept him from sinking into the thoughts overrunning his mind and kept him thinking instead about actually enjoying himself for a change.

“Zabini,” he said, his tone sounded almost crude, contradictory to the grin on his face as he took another sip of his drink. “People can’t have been that draining to deal with today, could they?” he asked thoughtfully. “Then again, I guess that’s always the case, isn’t it?” Ethan leaned forward, grabbing a pack of cigarettes off the table, pulling one from the pack and light it as he took another sip from his drink – looking over at his company for the evening wondering what had her ready to get wasted so much faster than usual.

[Arianna Marie Zabini]

This past year Arianne had gotten very good ad self-medicating with alcohol. Her cracked rib barely twinged after two whiskey doubles, the pain dulling further as she sipped her rum. Of all the alcohol, rum might be her favorite, she decided as the rum and whiskey mixed in her system, buzzing pleasantly through her veins.

Rum made her think of far away places. Tropical places where the world was all sea and sand and vibrant flowers. She liked flowers, strange as that seemed. Flowers were beautiful for the sake of being beautiful. They served no other purpose, had no other hidden agenda. They just were. Even the venomous tentacula in Green House 3 wore it’s intentions on its leaves. Maybe instead of joining her parents and their horrendous political agenda of genocide she could run away to a tropical island and be a herbalist.

She hummed in amusement at her own ridiculous daydream, then frowned. That was the first time she’d admitted to herself the whole Nex thing sounded horrible. Not the dark magic, that part seemed interesting, learning forbidden spells and all that. The horrible part was using those spells to hurt people who’d never done anything to her or anyone else.

Arianne was bitch. She was ambitious. She earned her reputation as an ice queen every day and twice on Sundays, but Arianne didn’t think she was evil. Not like her parents wanted her to be. Not like everyone else said Voldemore had been.

The world was changing so fast and soon Arianne would have to make a choice. Her family pride or helping people. She honestly didn’t know which one she would choose.

And in the meantime, Potter was still lounging on the couch, distractingly handsome with the barest hint of a smirk on his lips, eyes dancing mischievously. Arianne honestly didn’t know what he was doing with her. Opposites attract, as the saying goes, but he was a Gryffindor golden boy and she was a Slytherin loner. Still, he was looking awfully handsome.

“Zabini. People can’t have been that draining to deal with today, could they? Then again, I guess that’s always the case, isn’t it?”

Potter almost sounded like he cared and Arianne smirked. Coming around the bar, strutting as best she could to the couch. “Well,” she said, settling against the arm and arranging herself so she face him, legs curled beneath her, “that’s the thing. I have too much energy so I came looking for something to do.”

[Ethan Hunter Potter]

In all honesty, there wasn’t much that Ethan knew about the Slytherin beauty that he had been so fixated with recently – and most of what he knew was hearsay, because no matter who you are, people talk. They both had reputations in their respective houses and throughout the school – his as the Gryffindor jock and party boy, a Potter, son of the Minister of Magic; hers as the Slytherin ice queen, a Zabini, daughter of one of the few truly pureblood families left. Those facts alone should have made them natural enemies – and in the public eye, though they never really spat or feuded, they certainly didn’t give each other the attention they did here, if any at all.

Her family would surely disown her for even looking in his direction with a look that wasn’t meant to kill – and though his father likely wouldn’t mind, the fear that her family has Nex connections would cause unnecessary strain; these were only a handful of the reasons the couple did their best not to be seen together in the presence of the sober minded.

Tonight, he sat back and sipped his drink, watching as she knocked back a couple of glass of whiskey like it was nothing – he had to admit, the fact that she could hold her alcohol probably as well as he did was just one more of the qualities of hers that he found attractive. However, it wasn’t like her to jump into the drinks so quickly before even acknowledging his existence – when it was just the two of them, things were different. It wasn’t something you would call tender, caring or loving – but rather lustful, passionate and raw – but it was still far different from the cold glares occasionally made in passing through the halls (keeping up appearances, of course).

Ethan noticed as she seemed distracted after making her third drink – a fruitier cocktail with rum this time – especially when only for a moment, she frowned. It was clear she was lost in thought, something that wasn’t usually the case when she came through that door – usually, they both came here with purpose. Tonight, it had been a little impromptu – but she knew he would be here and had made sure he knew she was coming when she could escape her parents house, where he knew (from her body language alone when she spoke of going home, not that she would tell him) that she had been dreading going for the weekend.

It’s not like he was about to force her into talking about it – he wasn’t one for talking about his strained relationship with his father, families are complicated – but he was glad that he could be her escape from the hell of real life in the way that she had been for him recently. After being held captive by Cato Blackwell, tortured for weeks and then healing up in St. Mungo’s for months, he had returned to school with people buzzing around him with questions – and all he wanted to do was get drunk, get high, get laid, and forget it all. Arianna had been the one who provided that escape for him when he needed it – whether she knew that or not – and he was more than happy to return the favor.

Finally, she said his name as she turned to head toward him, drink in hand – he smirked, retorting in much the same fashion – then asking her if people could have possibly been that hard to deal with (and promptly correcting himself, knowing it was very possible). “Well,” she said as she came over to sit facing him, her legs tucked under her as she leaned into the arm of the couch, “that’s the thing. I have too much energy so I came looking for something to do,” she explained.

Ethan merely rolled his eyes – he knew that was very much an excuse, but his playful expression never wavered, “Is that so?” he questioned, taking a drag off his cigarette and looking up, exhaling the smoke toward the high ceiling. Taking a sip of his glass of whiskey he looked her up and down once more, that mischievous and teasing smirk never left his face - “I think we can find a way to use up some of that unneeded energy,” he said suggestively. After taking another long drag off the cigarette, he exhaled the smoke upwards again, but leaned to the side, setting the cigarette down in the ashtray letting it burn away – and moved closer to her end of the couch as he took another sip of his drink.