Letters I Can't Send

9

She sniffs, her head still hidden from me. I want her to be okay. I want to smile and laugh or, heck, fight with me, I want her to have her fire back. She looks so helpless and scared right now. So unlike her usual self.

I don't want to ask her more questions, but I need to know for her sake. "Where's the blood from?"

Three words slip past her lips, and I'm honestly shocked. "I bit him."

I stutter for a moment. "You—you bit him?" she finally looks up at me with her tear-filled eyes. She stares at me like she's waiting for me to day something else. Something that would help her determine how to feel about it. "Damn, Ellis," I try to lighten the mood, try to make her feel at least a little better. "That's badass," she does something that resembles a smile, which makes me smile softly myself.

"Um, what did you say about Sirius Black being in the castle?" she says, a hint of nerve in her voice, uncertainty.

"Right," I say, becoming a bit more on edge. "We best get back to the Great Hall," I push off the floor and offer a hand for her to take—and she does—and we sneak back to the doors of the Hall.

She hasn't let go of my hand, and I don't mind one bit. It feels nice—unlike anything else I've experienced.

I poke my head through the door of the Great Hall to check if anyone was there. Everyone is in their sleeping bags, hopefully sleeping, because Y/n and I tip-toe into the Great Hall, hand-in-hand—which could look pretty unusual to anyone who might be watching.

I lead us to a corner of the Great Hall, far from everyone else, and no one will see us. I leave Y/n there, only to retrieve blankets and pillows and anything really.

When I come back, I see her with wired earbuds in both her ears and I think back to the comment she wrote in her notebook about liking muggle music. I wonder what she's listening to.

She looks to still be crying, so I set a blanket around her shoulders and she looks up at me.

I sit down next to her and reach out a hand to wipe her off her tear-stained cheeks dry. She watches me with an unreadable expression.

"Can I see?" I point to her neck, where he must have held her.

She nods and lifts her chin for me to take a look at her enflamed neck. She hisses when I trace a finger over the marks, but she doesn't tell me to stop, so I keep touching her neck gently. "Where else," I ask, indicating if she had any other cuts or scrapes along her body.

"...my back." She straightens up a little. "It was a brick wall." She says and I suck in a sharp breath. I can only imagine how it hurt.

I take breath, wonder if she'd let me look at it. "Can-can I see that too?" I ask hesitantly.

She thinks it over for a moment before nodding slowly. She turns around so that her back is facing me and lifts the back of her shirt up a bit.

Already, I can see several scratches and bruises. I take the hem of her shirt and push it up a little further, quietly analyzing the damage. "...Ellis..." I say in a whisper. It's bad. Her back is covered in cuts of all shapes and sizes. I push her shirt up, my fingers occasionally brushing her back until I see the hooks of her bra, so I advert my eyes and pull her shirt down just enough to cover them. I rub my thumb over a particularly nasty scrape at around her mid-back and feel her either shiver or wince, I'm not sure. "You need these checked out..." I tell her and she shakes her head.

"Please, no." is what she says. "I don't want that. I don't want someone examining me and poking and prodding at me,"

"But isn't what I'm doing?" I point out as I pull down the hem of her shirt and she turns back around to face me.

"...It's different when you do it. I don't mind," her comment makes me want to smile. But then I remember that she's had a middle-aged man do unspeakable things to her and hurt her terribly. I don't think I'm able to physically smile with that in mind.

There are still tears running down her face and I don't know how to stop them. "What do you need?" I ask, I can't help but want to comfort her and make her feel better. To hold her close and never let her go. To make her laugh. To make her happy.

"I—I don't know—" she chokes out. A small sob escapes her lips and she buries her face in her hands once more.

And that's it for me. I slide closer to her wrap my arms around her, I pull her to my chest and stoke her hair tenderly.

"You'll be okay," I whisper into her ear.

.........

It's still dark outside—must be at least 2 in the morning and I lean my back against the stone wall, and her head is in my lap, supported by a pillow, listening to music through her earbuds. She calmed down, but she can't sleep. She tried to, but couldn't. So, we sit and I stroke her hair as she plays with the hem of the blanket draped over my legs.

I don't want to say this is nice, but it is. It's more than nice. I've never felt this way before. Like a warmth in my chest, that used to be an empty, hollowed out cave. But it's being filled. By her. And it feels good.

I know she doesn't feel good right now, but I'm trying my best.

She shifts in my lap, so now she's looking up the ceiling. Just staring, a ghosted, emotionless look on her face. Now she plays with hem of the blanket over her legs.

I continue to stroke the hair at the top of her head, watching her blank face, until another tear falls down her cheek, so I quickly wipe it away and go back to her hair.

She needs someone right now. That person is me.

a/n: ummmm kind of in love with this chapter, so.... <3

and to make up for the last 2 short chapters, this is the long one =)

next one on the way lollllll