Chapter 1

Scalding.

The scalding hot water burned the flesh of the young girl. Eyes blank staring at the wall ahead, arms hugging bare skin and knees and bumps of pain and pruned fingers from the water still so warm. The hair she had cut herself - no magic at all - fell just above her shoulders darkened with her own hands scrubbing dye into it. Chocolate brown hair dye she had stolen from a shop, eyes blank as the box slipped under her heavy coat, too warm for summer, though she would risk getting caught than having to open her mouth to talk.

Dripping, small droplets of water from the faucet near the bottom of the tub she sat in, cornered into the wall like a lost puppy, a fear she had felt for weeks, for months. Her skin never cleared the touch of a man still felt upon her shoulders, and most nights she wished that the release of death could pull the fingerprints and claw marks from her body.

She never wished to die before.

But now it seemed like a heavenly thought.

She had scrubbed her skin each night, a cry of pain leaving her lips was the only sign of life that she was able to produce noise, though it was a split second of a whimper, a horrid sound so frail and unhappy and foreign on her tongue.

More bodies roamed the halls of their small home, filled up Remus' room and stayed out of her way. No one dared enter the room in which it happened, boarded and taped, she couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand the house and as the nights crept by slowly, she stayed awake. Eyes dropped with exhaustion and sometimes she slept leaning against the messy black-haired boy with glasses who felt sick every time he thought of the rough brutal hands hurting the girl he loved.

He didn't walk on eggshells with her.

He was the only one not to.

He knew she needed routine, to feel something which was why he sat outside of the bathroom leaning against the wall with a blanket and a mug scalding with hot chocolate like clockwork because she needed to feel and the burning on her hands and the aching water on her skin allowed her to feel, and the nipping of a burning tongue allowed her to feel.

He talked and she listened and she took in everything and on the rare days she replied but not much, a sentence maybe, or mostly a word, but she knew why he talked and she knew why his voice was softer than usual.

He soothed her, he didn't mean to and sometimes she hated the thought of relying on someone as much as she did him but his voice was able to drop her eyes and she knew he meant it after he realised what he did and she still allowed it.

The others stayed out of her way and she knew why and she hated the foreign feeling of the silence though she accepted it. Remus wasn't himself and she knew why and it sent her heart to clench in her chest, aching to reach out to him but she just couldn't.

He witnessed her so close to death, blood and wounds and eyes milky and rolled back into her head so far gone, he witnessed the goodbyes she whispered in her last breath and held her and clutched her and cried for her in those aching moments of horror.

He couldn't bear thinking of it.

Sirius kept his distance and yet she saw him everywhere. She read textbooks after textbooks, studied plants after plants and ignored the mountains of letters of sorrows and apologies, ignored the same inked word on brown rough paper all within the same meanings and sadness sprouted from the page.

The paper, front page news that everyone had seen. The name of her written in big letters under the headline and the horror that she was the victim of made it onto the very front page, headlined the news for a week straight and even after, even now;

YOUNG GIRL ALMOST SLAUGHTERED TO HER DEATH.

Almost, almost - and yet she wished that such a feat of surviving didn't spare her as quickly as it did, that somehow the numbing pain she felt every day wasn't as worth it as she once thought whilst lying in pain and feeling every prick and ache that each wound and scar and cut made her feel.

A whole interview set up with cameras and lighting and a perky young interviewer with a notepad and clear-framed glasses sitting atop of her features behind which perfectly styled eyes donned with a deep purple eyeshadow and thick mascara-coated eyelashes batted.

"How did it feel?"

Bea sat blankly but the question struck a chord. How did it feel? How did it feel? She wished to tell her that the only thing she felt was a strong hatred and a sudden urge to throw her out of their front room window, and yet her blank eyes stared ahead and the interviewer cleared her throat.

"M-Miss?"

"No comment." James' voice was quiet and his eyes lifted from the hand near his, going through every possibility and wondering the boundaries set to lift her hand and make sure she knew he was there right by her side.

"Were you scared?"

Her jaw clicked and she stiffened and she processed every word but remained as still as anything, blank, shielding her emotions as though second nature and the woman was getting frustrated as though sympathy wasn't a word known to her.

And James thought over a second time whether or not to take her hand.

"Are you hurting?"

James didn't need to think that time because a brush of her hand slid over his own and next was her hand in his, though not intertwined. Her small hand had curled into a full fist and she had rested it in his hand, not for comfort, but for awareness.

And he realised the awareness she needed when the warm, deep crimson blood poured out of the sides of her hands and pooled in a small puddle on the palm of James'.

"That's enough," James spoke with an emotion not yet heard. He never was one to be as angry as he was now, and in his time with her during summer, being there with their family like the others, not once was his voice above the soothing tone for Bea.

And yet in that moment with the woman who had made up how Bea felt for her story, a tragic heart-breaking tale of a girl who never wished her first time to be like that, James growled and glowered until the woman packed up hurriedly and left.

As though Bea's fate was hard enough, the newspaper sent a copy on the day it published and on the front, was Bea, blank-faced and dull eyes drooping with exhaustion and before anyone could stop her, she did more than what she had done in the weeks and months of summer, and she set fire to the newspaper.

Her eyes fixated on the small droplets of water until her eyes closed as they fell from her skin and hit the water in the tub, creating the smallest form of a splash one tiny droplet could muster. She was cold and the water was cooling and yet she stayed there and lifted herself up, hunched herself over so that more skin was exposed to the cool air.

Because the breeze kissed her skin and she felt it.

"Bea." The soft voice floated under the door followed by a tap, "come on."

She didn't disobey, and it was not like she needed to follow rules given to her but she was so lost, she felt so lost, and so she did as told because it was better than to wander.

She shivered in the cold and a towel wrapped around her and the door opened when she unlocked it. James entered and she didn't care because he stared right into her eyes as he helped her dry the cold dripping water and she stared back, and for the minutes in which she was too exhausted to dry herself and he helped her, he saw the emotion no one else did.

He left when she was dry and she let the towel fall in order to get dressed.

Clothes not in her house before fell over her skin.

James' t-shirt.

Sirius' hoodie.

New pyjama trousers.

She couldn't bear the thought of going into that room, no one could, and the feeling of comfort she received from the clothing was enough for her to continue to wear it.

A blanket fell over her shoulders when she finally walked out of the bathroom and he opened the door to Remus' room for her. Blown up mattress' scattered the floor with clothes and shoes and mess everywhere and she knew that it was her mess and yet she couldn't bear admit to it.

She had the bed situated in the middle, the most comfortable bed, Remus' bed which he sacrificed for her. She didn't think that was fair because she barely slept anyway.

"How are you feeling?" asked James, like clockwork again and sometimes he expected an answer and sometimes he didn't.

"Alright."

"How are you feeling, truthfully?" he didn't walk on eggshells around her because he knew her.

Violet sobbed when she heard the news because there was a chance that her best friend could have died before she had the chance to say goodbye, she could have died and Violet wasn't talking to her and Bea loved her so much that when Violet turned up to the house with the others, she forced a smile.

And it was enough.

Peter barely recognised his best friend though he knew it was her even with the much darker and shorter hair, it was Bea, but it wasn't too and that thought stayed with him nestled in the corner of his brain whilst he tended to the garden for her and tried his best to make Mrs Lupin crack even the smallest smile.

Sirius kept his distance though he was with her almost always, except her bath that she had every single day, he would be there.

"Numb," was the word she described it, though it felt wrong, "no." she had never disagreed with herself before and James' eyes snapped up to her when she whispered it, "I don't feel like myself."

"You're not yourself."

She looked offended when her eyes bore to his, and as much as he didn't wish to see her like that, it was a change from the blank eyes and as though she felt the need to speak more than she had been, she whispered, "you're not supposed to agree."

"Never did I say that it was not okay...though, to not be yourself. Nor have I ever thought you are anything less than who you are because you need help." She bit her lip hard to stop her harsh words of anger, though none of it directed towards James.

"I can't even dry myself without needing help."

"Sometimes we all need he-"

"Why haven't you reacted?" it was quick on her tongue and she blurted it out, stopping him, gaining his attention.

"Bea."

This was the most she had spoken in weeks, no months and she never would admit that the feeling of words falling from her mouth was one that she had missed, that less of a dry throat was a good sensation, and the curiosity had bubbled in her the moment the news floated through James' ears.

"Answer me." She was trying, forcing herself to talk, to force herself back into who she was but it didn't work like that and she would find out soon enough, "James...why haven't you reacted?"

She was pleading and her eyes begged an answer and he knew she just wanted to know something other than the, "it doesn't matter," and the, "It's alright."

And so, he sat down on the bed, and he dared take her hand and she squeezed it so tight like she had been waiting for him to do it, "if I react in the way I wish to, Bea, I'm afraid I don't think I'd be able to control my anger."

Her lips parted at the rage circling his narrowed eyes, though not at her.

But the man who did what he did to her.

"If I allow what I feel to take over me, Bea, I'd kill him.

And I'd enjoy it."

[A/N i would just like to inform u all reading this that even though it's 1:46am, tonight is a full moon.]