[so i think i'm the worst at taking a break but i'm still on a break i've just been procrastinating a whole lot]

Chapter 14

Bea knew it wasn't exactly safe for herself to use a ladder in her art gallery considering she was apart of the clumsiest family alive. Both her and Remus were extremely clumsy, so much so that Remus was able to hide his entire identity of being a werewolf because being so clumsy was so completely plausible that no one cared to think otherwise.

And Bea was no different.

She had dragged the ladder from one of the many closets that the castle offered when a plan popped into her head that she thought would lead to an interesting outcome. She had hauled up as many cans of paint onto the ladder and soon flicked her wand so that they levitated beside her and followed her around as she painted.

It started with a vine painted with the dark green paint that dripped down her dungarees, it trailed over the wooden panels of the ceiling and she was slightly terrified of how high up she was, but she decided to ignore it.

But when she couldn't reach the very top of the ceiling, she decided the ladder was no good for her and pushed herself on to the wooden panel, sitting there with her paintbrush in her mouth and four more paintbrushes she was using of different shapes and sizes. She was getting the hang of painting she thought, and detail was coming naturally to her, but Beau said it wasn't very surprising considering she spent every single day painting for hours upon end.

She puffed out some air, her back hunched over as she stroked the paintbrush over the wood, the yellow stood out over the dark brown wood and she decided to use the wood as the middle of the sunflower she was painting to sprout from the vines.

"Bea!"

"Jesus!" she shrieked, eyes wide and looking down to see Beau at the door with eyes just as wide and disbelief in his eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" he exclaimed, closing the door behind him with his arms flailing around him in exasperation, "you're going to fucking kill yourself you fucking idiot!"

"Been there, done that," she grumbled with an eye-roll, "throw me that book up."

"I don't have the best aim!" he called, muttering some colourful words under his breath when she merely glared at him.

"If I hit you with it then it's not my fault!" he grinned cheekily, eyes scanning the room until he spotted the ladder and decided just to climb up to her with the book in his hand, "what is it anyway?"

"I believe it's a book," she said simply, grabbing it from his hand and rolling her eyes when he leaned his head on the wooden panel she was sitting on.

"Your sarcasm isn't appreciated."

"Is it ever?" she huffed, flipping through the book until she found the page she was looking for. She kept it open with her knee resting on the page and Beau absentmindedly twiddled the lace of her converse in his hand as he watched her paint the sunflower.

"Why don't you let your friends in here?" he asked.

"You're my friend," she only replied with, trying to steer herself away from the conversation but he merely rolled his eyes.

"Your other friends," he said, grumbling something about her being a smart arse and sounding completely odd with his accent.

"Look at my paintings," she whispered, eyes focusing solely on the sunflower, "they are...are memories of that time, how I can portray that in paintings, the red is the blood. But I've drawn you so many times that it's like second nature, and I've drawn flowers, but every turn is another dark painting, something I don't want them to...to see."

"They aren't good for you, Bea," he shook his head, "a reminder of what happened isn't going to help you get over it."

"It get's out my emotions of it," she murmured, "when I get better I'm going to draw myself."

"Really?"

"Yeah, cutting the head off that fucking prick." She shrugged.

She threw her head back with a groan, mumbling curse words under her breath and Beau had to stop his laughter when he realised the influence he had on her. She cursed almost as much as he did, and he knew that it was because of how much time they had spent together that she merely picked up on his vocabulary.

"What is it?"

Her eyes trailed to him and she smiled, she smiled at him. It was small, but it was almost pleading, and his eyes narrowed and with a grumble of annoyance, he asked, "what?"

"I forgot my wand."

"Good for you."

"Beau, please," she frowned, "it's on the desk."

"You know you're in an awfully good mood today," he said, his tone surprised as he climbed back down the ladder to retrieve her wand, "turns me on."

"Everything turns you on, Beau," she snorted, shaking her head, "you're a walking definition of sexually frustrated."

"Are your friends mad that they aren't allowed in here?" Beau asked, "they've noticed the charms, haven't they?"

"I think so," she mumbled, tucking her shorter - slightly growing - hair behind her ear, "Remus came by and when he couldn't get in he told me I needed to work on shading, flipped me off and then left."

"I like that brother of yours," he nodded, though Bea could tell he was thinking of something, "one wand for the lady."

"Why thank you, good sir," she grabbed her wand with something a little less than a frown, and a bow of her head that was enough for Beau to grin, "so what's on your mind?"

"Nothing at all," he said a little too quickly to be true and went back to watching her, the lace of her converse twiddling between his fingers again, "I heard about those girls."

She tensed ever so slightly, eyes blank and straightening herself up with a cough, "they're a bunch of dicks."

"I do have you wrapped around my finger," she teased, though it was quite clear that she wasn't happy in the slightest, "I wouldn't go as far as to say I'd fuck you, though."

"Too weird," he snorted, "I'm sorry...that you had to hear that."

Her eyes lifted from the flower she was adding detail to, lips parted ever so slightly at the sincerity in his voice. He looked sad...guilty, a frown on his face and anger in his eyes and she realised just how much he truly was her friend.

His teasing, her teasing...it was nothing compared to the friendship they had built. It was a way to cope - a way to build her back up and laugh and take her mind off the pain she had forced herself into...forced herself into a state of wallowing and she couldn't seem to bring herself back, but he knew because he had been in her place before.

He had told her just that but not the specifics and she wasn't sure if he ever would tell her, but she knew damn well that she'd be there for him if he ever trusted her enough to tell her.

"Since when are you a Ravenclaw?" she could hardly think of what to say and she felt the disbelief in her stomach when her eyes dropped to his school robes. Usually, he changed out of them before arriving at her gallery after class, she had only seen his robes a few times - even in classes, but she had never observed much to even notice the blue and bronze that decorated them.

"Are you serious right now, Bea?" Beau shook his head, "it's been months!"

"I didn't realise!" she only said, reaching forward and lifting up the robes in her hand, "you're in the smart house."

His eyes narrowed at her, "you're in the kind house."

"...touché."

He laughed loudly, leaning his arm on her leg whilst she returned to her painting, "trust me, Bea, I think you being a Hufflepuff Is the most unsurprising thing I have ever heard in my life."

She rolled her eyes, running a hand through her hair and turning back to her sunflower, "you're not the only one to think that, I think. Last year...last year I was so different it was crazy, I could talk to anyone at all...anyone. I could smile and laugh and be so happy and talk to everyone but now its just so intimidating. The halls are intimidating and even if I go to herbology I can't walk out with everyone else I have to wait.

But waiting is painful because I see the pain in Professor Sprout's eyes and I know I should thank her, I need to thank her even if she doesn't think I need to - I do."

"Why?"

He knew why he had heard why but she needed to hear it herself.

"Because she saved me," she took a deep breath, "she gave me a plant before the holiday, it was this odd exotic plant, but I knew that when I was tending it, it had a mind of its own. It saved me, it sealed my wounds and brought me back, and she gave me it!"

"She knows you're hurting, Bea," he forced a smile for her. It was almost painful for him to hear about the Bea that used to roam the halls the year previous to his arrival, because she had such a longing for her to return that it ached his heart for his closest friend, "now focus on the sunflower."

She nodded her head silently, hunching herself over to move closer to the sunflower and soon painting the finishing touches of the outlines. The book she was holding open with her knee soon found it's way into her hand and she handed the brush to Beau so that she didn't need to hold it in her mouth.

Her eyebrows knitted as she stared at the spell on the book and then eyed the sunflower and her wand and Beau watched her intently as she guided her wand to her arm, and in an instant whilst she muttered the incantation from the book - a gold light pulled from her arm and she gasped, though keeping her concentration solely on the three things.

Her book, the sunflower, and her wand.

She moved the wand from her arm, guiding it with her eyes and her hand waving elegantly until it reached the long vine that she had drawn over a large part of the panel and her and Beau watched in silence as the gold light from her wand seeped through the vine painted on the wall and travelled to the sunflower.

It wasn't Bea that gasped that time when the sunflower closed up. It had closed over - it moved on the wood and closed over as if it hadn't bloomed yet and with a pant of breath she hadn't realised she had been holding, Bea let her wand fall.

"What...what did you do?" Beau could hardly speak as he watched her, grabbed her hand tightly as though she was going to fall from the wood. She looked distraught, like that piece of magic had taken a part of her, but she lazily smiled - it was a real smile and he was positive he saw the sunflower twitch.

"I connected myself to the painting," she croaked out, reaching up with her free hand to trace the sunflower softly, "it's with me."

"Why did it close up?" he asked, and she ignored him as she grabbed her wand and the extra paintbrushes as well as the book and slid onto the ladder with him, deciding that was enough work for the day and descending the stairs whilst he hurried down after her with many questions on the tip of his tongue that he couldn't decipher.

"Bea!"

She dusted herself off, locking her tools in the small cabinet built near the desk of the room pushed against the wall and turned to face him.

"You'll see at some point," she whispered, eyeing the sunflower, or lack thereof, "...hopefully."