You would ask me, and I would beat you, chain you, whip you until the blood tainted your pale skin.

You would cry in my arms, and say it had been your fault, all those people who had died in the war. I would comfort you as best I could. You would calm and fall asleep.

Every night it was worse. You would find new torture toys, and force me to be more and more violent. You would say that was the only way you felt alive.

When you installed a rack with skin hooks in my bedroom... I tried. I swear to you that I tried. But when I saw the hooks stretching your skin over your stomach, starting to disembowel you, I couldn't stand it any more. I stopped the mechanism; I released you carefully from the hook, cast a spell to mend your skin and collapsed over you in tears.

"I won't do that, Harry." I sobbed like a child, and you hugged me, stroking my back and my hair, trying to comfort me. "I know I promised to give you everything you thought necessary. I know you want to be punished. I would do anything to make you feel better, but... not this."

"I thought you were the ideal partner, because... because you hated me."

"No, Harry. I never hated you. Don't punish me. Don't ask me to be your executioner."

The End