Daisy Potter and the Wedding (Book 8, Harry Potter ff)

Chapter 17 - Rivalry

"Are you absolutely sure you wanna do this?" Fred said as we trekked through the Forbidden Forest, steadying me as I wobbled on a thick root. "Just because a hot professor told you, you don't have to do it, y'know."

"I do." I said firmly. "I haven't been back here since the Battle, and I haven't been near those other two places since my last encounters with him in them, and I need to face them again to remind myself that I'm healing. That I'm still here and he isn't."

We approached a muddy group of roots; I looked warily at it then down at my flimsy school shoes. George glanced down at his own school shoes, thicker and sturdier than mine, then looked up again, grinning; he swept me up into his arms and stepped over the roots, and I giggled as he set me down safely on the other side.

"Thanks, handsome." I said flirtatiously, going on my tip-toes to press a kiss to George's lips. George placed two fingers under my chin, keeping my face tilted up to him for a few seconds more, the lingering sensation of his lips on mine making me blush.

I broke away to the sound of Terry pretending to retch, and caught a glimpse of Fred glowering at George. As soon as he noticed me staring, Fred tried to relax his expression and turned away.

What the hell was that about? Were they still pissed at each other about something? Were they still fighting over me, even though both of them had me?

"Besides," I continued, choosing to ignore the immaturity of my two boyfriends, "I don't want to leave this school with places existing where the last time I was there, I was with him. This is MY school. I'm not about to have him ruin any part of it for me."

"Hear, hear." Terry said, patting me on the back.

I stopped dead. Here it was. The clearing. Where all those Death Eaters, Hagrid, Draco, stood and watched me die. Where Riddle had killed me and a bit of himself. Where Riddle had crouched beside my body and shoved his fingers into it...

I took a deep breath. "He did it here." I said, walking over to the patch of ground where I'd laid. "He killed me here. He taunted me first, saying I could beg for my life and get on my knees; he wanted me to suck his dick in front of all the Death Eaters, and he'd let me live if I did."

I noticed the twins and Terry's sickened faces out of the corner of my eye.

"Piece of fucking -" Fred muttered under his breath.

"Then when I was laying here, pretending to be dead - because of course, I'd never beg for my life or suck his dick again or be humiliated in front of all those people, so he killed me - he felt me up and forced his fingers into me. I'd refused to be humiliated when I was still alive, so he decided to do it when I could no longer fight back."

"How did you stop yourself from punching him in the balls right then and there?" Terry said, his voice low with muted rage. "I don't think I could have controlled myself."

I laughed, twice. "I almost did. I think I was more scared than angry, though. That's what kept me quiet."

I cast one last look around the clearing. I saw that Fred, George, and Terry were all doing the same, as if picturing what had went down here; their faces were growing more sickened by the second.

"Okay, I think I'm done." I said, more for their benefit than mine. "Let's go."

Approaching Riddle's old quarters along the teacher's corridor in the dungeons, I could feel bile rising in my throat. Only a few of the professors' quarters were in the dungeon, and Riddle's was the last one on the left. There was a thick yellow rope stretched in front of the door, like the barriers along red carpets, and I almost laughed at the comparison in my head.