Cigarette smoke creeps lazily across the ceiling of the abandoned shack where students hide from their professors and pulling all-nighters after Quidditch matches. James is there, of course—the best Seeker. The handsome one. The party animal. A starboy. Everyone either wants him, or wants to be him.

He's sprawled out on a battered velvet sofa. The young man is laughing cheekily, murmuring something to a blonde Slytherin cheerleader in a miniskirt. His ringed fingers toy with a bottle of Firewhisky. His long legs, clad in scuffed Converse with peeling gold paint, are slung up on the coffee table: his whole being, from tousled hair to mismatched socks, screams "I can do what I bloody well like."

And you still remember: thirty-odd minutes ago, his hands were on your hips. Now he won't even look your way.

Sometimes he calls you Professor because he likes to play with your goody-two-shoes reputation. But it's you he shows off his broomstick tricks to, you he scribbles slurred notes to in the middle of the night. His fallback.

But—

You wrap yourself in his woolly jumper with the faded lion on the back, trying to erase the image in front of you. His gaze catches on you straight away. Your hips are in his line of vision, and he's already on his feet like a hunter who is clocked movement of his prey.

"Where you off to, book fairy?" a drawn-out voice calls. His glasses have slipped down the bridge of his nose; his lips are shiny with booze.

Your ragged breathing and a little squeak, almost drowned out by the music, when his sinewy hands catch you by the waist in the dim light of the shack.

"Are you jealous?" James grins. The world turns upside down: your back hits the mattress, and his hands are under your jumper.

You instinctively try to push him off, pressing your palms against his chest, but he covers your lips with his. Too hot. Too pushy.

"Don't hate me," he whispers.

The ceiling is spinning. Everything is spinning. His hands are the only thing keeping you above water—between I love and he is using.