Abraxas had begun to perceive that he was losing his mind.

It was not as the tabloid novels depicted: everything was far more refined and, perhaps, even pleasant at first like a mild fever of the soul, accompanied by a sweet internal ringing. And the cause of this corruption in the citadel of his reason was you: an impudent girl, with the visage of a porcelain doll and eyes that glittered with the deceitful gleam of a drawing-room ingénue.

The young man waged battle with himself, but jealousy wound about his entrails, squeezing with increasing fervour each day. Should Tom, cursed Riddle, and yet his truest friend, so much as brush your wrist, or allow his gaze to wander along the line of your neck, Abraxas felt his nails pierce his palms, crescent wounds blooming on alabaster skin. Ah, how true now seemed that old human truth: that, throughout both Magical and Muggle history, countless conflicts had found their root in the eyes and breath of a woman.

The other Knights of Walpurgis, of course, noticed you. In an age when war had faded into memory, when women embraced Dior's New Look, and men still ironed their trousers with military precision, being the only girl among them was considered a provocation. That much was inevitable.

Tom merely watched you. Your awkward attempt to insert yourself into a circle that, by every tradition, did not admit the likes of you rendered you, to him, a rarity worthy of contemplation.

Reinhard Lestrange, in contrast, adored you. Frankly, he simply liked how you bent across the desk when you argued in the Slytherin common room. The view, as he once remarked with a smirk, was capital.

Thaddeus Nott, with the angelic countenance of a Florentine martyr and the soul of a Neapolitan pickpocket, became positively docile in your vicinity—in short, a puppy.

Balthazar Avery called you a doll, a sugar confection, a porcelain bloom, meat meant for— And none, not even Riddle, knew that he crept into the girls' dormitories (nimbly avoiding the spells designed to prevent male invasion) and stole strands of your hair left in your comb.

Marcel Rosier—perhaps the gentlest of them, if such a word might survive in that pitiless company. His manners were gallant, faintly archaic, and bore the unquestionable trace of old breeding. If he loved you, he did so in a minor key.

Domitius Mulciber was different. He neither flirted nor jeered. He knew that it was you who desired him, not the reverse. In this, he had no doubt.

And what of Abraxas?

Hated you with a terrible purity, a refined sort of loathing that burned white beneath the lacquer of noble restraint.

He hated you so much that it was love.

And just as fervently, he awaited each evening when the final echoes vanished beneath the ancient stone and stillness reigned in that place scented of damp uniforms, rosemary soap, and wet wool. He seated himself on the bench, tracking your routine to the second: you always forgot your satchel. And Abraxas began to count off the twelve minutes that you always kindly left him.

His trembling fingers sifted through garments, searching for the one that had enfolded the minds of men. You were, more often than not, fond of lace.

Twelve minutes to commit sin.

But he saw no madness in the act. He named it control—a restoration of order, upset by each glance you bestowed upon Tom, each breath that grazed another's ear.

The man clutched a lace trophy in his fist—still warm, bearing the ghost of your scent; the purest ether struck his lungs. His grey wool trousers were drawn down to his knees, silver brace clasps jangling faintly. His shirt was crumpled, the starched folds cracked at the creases. Platinum strands of hair had come loose. He tilted back his head, pressing the fabric to his face; his pupils dilated, his cheeks flushed with fever. He trembled.

His wide palm moved—fevered, then slow, then rough again. As if bewitched; as if, in that rhythm, pulsed the memory of a sacred place.

And it was then that the door clicked open. You stood on the threshold.

"For Merlin's bloody sake…" he rasped. "Truly?"