Strange Places, Empty Spaces, Familiar Faces

[Mavrick]

Angine’s life had been much different to Ace’s since the falling of Voldemort. With her parents dead and her affiliation not known, she was left alone. Sure, she kept a Death Eater or two who were on the run around her manor in Britain and Russia, but that was all she was guilty of these days, the list used to be long. On this night, her only sin was that she had gone out without Dimitri, but that was because he had a game the next day and he liked his sleep before a big match.

Angine, did not feel like laying about the estate, or even going for a ride that evening, so she had found herself headed in all her glory towards the establishment Ace had just exited, her short black and white striped dress clinging to her thighs and her long, dirty blonde locks bouncing in loose natural curls around her shoulders and down her back. The eighteen year old was on the arm of one of the best Quidditch players in the league, had a lifetime’s worth of money and all in all, was enjoying herself.

So her obvious gasp when she rounded a corner and stopped short of Ace was not unwarranted. It had been quite a while since he’d filled her mind, and suddenly, years worth of memories filled her head, the dam that was her security system cracking under the pressure and giving way to the torrent of hatred and sadness Ace had inflicted on her.

[Loutopia]

Ace Devlin had been fighting his whole life. He had fought with his father, his brother, and even on occasion with his mother. When he had undertaken an education at Hogwarts he had bullied and blackmailed his fellow students (and even the weaker-minded Professors) and during his years as a Death Eater-slash-Ministry Quill Pusher^™ he had used his more brazen talents to climb the pecking order. Indeed, for someone as used to packing a quick curse as Ace, fighting came naturally. Therefore using his brawn to earn him some coin was a highly lucrative business venture. The adrenaline still pumping though his veins made him look fresh and alive, and the only sign of his fight was the slight blood mark on his lip.

The trendy part of town was buzzing with activity, unlike the mile. Ace neither knew nor cared how long he had been walking, moving in silence with his head down and his mind sunk in thought. He would pay his rent up until next week and move on. The market was drying up here in Scotland, and he needed to crack into something new, something more profitable. It wasn’t until an audible gasp awakened him from his reverie that Ace looked up with his oceanic eyes and found himself face to face with a ghost. He felt the color drain from his energy-flushed face, and the bitter taste of blood came back to his tongue to haunt him in a coppery, sensual way.

Angine. Merlin, how he’d loved her.

Much like hers did, his mind immediately flew into overdrive in order to produce a slide-show of memories. Here, in his head, it all seemed so terribly cut and dry, so black and white that it was easy to see where he had gone wrong. In reality he had been consumed by his obsession and had gone to great lengths – terrible lengths – in order to self-fulfil some innate prophecy. His eyes narrowed as he realised the vision of her was not just his imagination. She was really, truthfully standing in front of his with wide blue eyes and a pretty little ‘o’ for a mouth. He itched to slap it and curse her for being stupid enough to leave him. His feet were planted to the spot and without hesitation he slipped into the innate Devlin charm, looking her up and down.

“Hello, Beautiful.”

[Mavrick]

It was an instinct that she could not contain, a need, a drive within her that made her move without her conscience being having knowing it. Her hand reached out the space between him and planted a fair slap across the man’s face. For being there, for calling her beautiful, for looking at her like that, for taking her life from her, her parents, her friends... he had taken everything from her.

In the moments after the clap of palm against cheek had rung in the otherwise quiet alleyway she stood fast, her eyes burning red hot with hatred at his gall to be so blazay in his addressing her. Her wand, would have been handy but it was not with her, unlike Ace, who at second glance looked like he had just been through one hell of a night.

As if to reinforce her reason for slapping him, her words bit into him the way she wished sharp objects would pierce his flesh and give him the same pain he had caused her. “How dare you,” she said boldly.