Chapter 30

Bea was pacing the room of requirement that she and Beau had set up for the group of survivors. Beau had sent out the charm an exact week ago to float through the ears of those who needed to hear and - and both of them were hoping that at least some of them would show up.

"It said to meet here, right? You gave instructions?" she was so nervous, hands waving frantically at one point and then moving, "you said about Dumbledore - didn't you?!"

"Yes, I said it all, it's all in the charm, Bea," Beau nodded, fixing the jumper he was wearing and rolling up the sleeves of the arms, "you need to calm down, Bea - it's fine! Everything's fine, we're on schedule!"

"But what if no one shows up?" she exclaimed, running a frustrated hand through her hair and hurrying over to him from the door. The room had everything they could possibly need, with goblets and sweets and treats already there when they had arrived at the room they had thought of.

The most comfortable couches sat close in the middle of the room, with extra armchairs near and stools, and blankets draped over the backs. A roaring fire that heated the room was against the main wall to the side of the door and the natural light of early February poured through the room.

"I think they will, Bea," Beau nodded, "and if they don't then...that might be a good thing, maybe? Because it means there aren't survivors who need us, that they're coping - alright, even. That maybe there's none, and we're the only ones."

"But we're not," she whispered, and just as she was about to speak once more - the door slowly opened, and Bea sighed, looking at the girl who she was just about to talk about.

"Macy," Bea whispered, "hi!"

"Oh, Bea!" Macy gasped, rushing towards her and Beau who was quick to pull her into a quick hug, "I didn't know what to expect! I got this...it was like a whisper - but it was nice, and I couldn't stop thinking about it all week, so I knew I had to come. I was quite confused with the hallway though...the no door thing and I thought it was a prank, but I remembered the pacing thing and here I am!"

"Here you are!" Bea laughed softly, "do you want a drink? Take a seat!"

Beau gestured to one of the many couches after she had nodded for a drink and Bea hurried off to the table laid out with everything on it, grabbing the goblet for Macy and handing it to her with a smile.

She had decided that a dress was better for the occasion rather than her dungarees, and the floral-patterned dress flowed in the small breeze the room was creating. She wanted to show that she wasn't going to let someone control her - and what she did, and what she wore because she loved to wear dresses and she felt beautiful for the first time in a long time when she twirled in the mirror with the dress on.

She greeted every student that entered with a smile, and she knew some of them too - from her year and other years and it was hard to face the fact that people she knew and greeted and laughed with had gone through something to bring them here.

And then, it was as like she had been punched, a knock on her heart sweeping her slightly off her feet because she forgot. And the fact that she had forgotten had waved her with such vivid guilt when Sirius walked through the door quietly, eyes on the ground and looking completely awkward because he didn't know if he should've come...he didn't want to come - but that whisper had nagged him the full week, told him it would be worth it.

So, he gave in.

And his heart broke too when he lifted his eyes and met Bea's.

She had seen him at James' house - it wasn't just James' it was his house too, it was their house and he was James' brother so of course, he would be there, so Bea forgot...she forgot the house he left...the one he ran from.

She rushed to him and he was quick to open her arms and she was like a wind as she fell into his arms, arms tight around his neck and holding him for dear life because he was also her brother, and it still bothered him...if it didn't then he would be here and that thought broke her heart even more than before.

And even more people came through those doors. Some had smiles on their faces and bright eyes and greeted everyone with a cheery greeting and even made small talk, and some sat on one chair and refused a drink and stared at their hands and Bea found herself in all of them - because, at some point in her life, she was all of them.

She was cheery, she greeted people with bright smiles and happy conversations but there was a time...and there still would be times when she wouldn't speak. When all she wanted to do was leave and talking was a sport she didn't want to take part in.

"I think that's everyone," Beau whispered in passing, with four goblets steadied in his hands filled with pumpkin juice.

Bea had nodded at his words, hands clutching an empty seat, "I think so to-"

The door opened again, and she turned - and if Sirius was able to hurt her heart, this somehow hurt her even more.

Because she didn't know there was any need for the girl to be there, and she looked so different. She had made herself look smaller and Bea had never thought it was possible for Violet Brown to look small, she was always loud - confident, she was so sure of herself.

But this...it didn't look like her.

"...Vi?" she whispers, voice able to break Violet's heart, and it looked to her that Bea's heart was already broken at the sight of her.

Violet hurried over to her and Bea had her arms around her in an instant, holding the girl so close to her...holding her best friend so tightly that both of them could hardly breathe but it was the last thought in their mind - the last thing they cared about.

"It was two years ago," the first girl said when they had all taken their seats and Violet's hand was still clutched tightly in Bea's who wasn't ready to let go, "I was...I was just sad - I had broken up with my first boyfriend and I wanted to do something, I wanted to go out and have fun.

I got...I got drunk. I was fifteen, and I knew it was wrong, but I wanted to do it - so I did. This guy, he was really nice to me and made me laugh and he offered to take me home, but I said no. I didn't know him, he didn't know me, and I was confused more than anything, but he insisted.

He got violent after that when I insisted more than him that 'no, I'll make my own way home.' He knocked me out which was easy enough...and I woke up the next day in his bed, and I can't remember what he did to me, but I was naked - I was...I know what had happened even though I can't remember, and it terrifies me every day."

It was story after story, and they didn't need sympathy - none of them needed that, or the common 'you'll get better' speech that no one had planned. They just needed someone to tell, to talk to - to be listened to without judgment.

"My dad is this high-class muggle business man," this one boy said, running a hand through his hair. Bea knew him, he was a seventh year and very popular if she recalled correctly...his looks got him girls, and James had pointed him out to her as an incredible Quidditch player for the Ravenclaw's.

"He is hardly home and when he is it's to drink his days away," he shook his head and the façade of the calm, cool and collected boy had gone to be replaced with a look only filled with pain, "he gets...he gets violent when he drinks - like he's not himself and when he sobers up he doesn't remember.

He punched the living shit out of me, smacked me with these glass bottles with alcohol of some sort and I had to go to the muggle hospital near my house just at Christmas there to get stitches and all this shit done. When he woke the next day, he asked if I had a Quidditch accident at school...I didn't know what to say, I was - I can't say anything, if I did - if he knew, I don't know what would happen.

And if his company knew, then he'd be out of a job - he'd be done for."

"You being safe is more important than his job," Bea said, frowning, "he's hardly there for you as it is, his assholeness can't be justified with 'oh I was drunk'."

"I know," he nodded, "I'm just...I don't know - I think I'm just-"

"Scared?" Violet whispered, eyeing the boy who finally looked at her, "you're scared."

He finally nodded, "exactly."

The next girl was a shy girl, she was so quiet that Bea had subtly amplified her voice with a charm she remembered, and the girl was grateful that she wasn't forced to talk louder than she needed to, "my sister...she goes to this fancy muggle school and she can't stand me.

She calls me a freak...she calls me so many names I didn't think it was abuse I thought it was just her being a sister. I thought it was just something she did, y'know, but then it was stuff that had me doubting myself.

It was things that I couldn't bring myself to think of because I would cry myself to sleep - it's...it's verbal abuse but that doesn't mean what I did to myself was verbal."

"I relate to that." The voice was a whisper behind Bea and the girl hated, she hated how many of her friends would benefit from being there because she wished they didn't need to go through anything that had them show up.

She stood suddenly, taking Lily's hand who had a pained expression on her face and sat her down on the chair big enough for the two of them.

The girl once talking gestured to Lily for her to talk instead, and Lily sat down her things and nodded silently, "my sister, her name is Petunia, and she thinks the same of me. My parents have always been proud of me - they didn't quite understand it...the whole witch thing and at first, I didn't either but I came here and it was the best thing ever.

And I wondered why every year I feared going home, that some summers I would beg Dumbledore to let me stay here and he said it was impossible to let me. Then I realised that it was my sister, it was Petunia. Because before Hogwarts...we just - we had this great relationship, y'know? We were regular sisters who did everything together, and then it started with little words...like freak.

She'd exclaim to everyone how much of a freak I was, and then it was words much harsher until her ignorance was worse than anything. The previous summer she called me so many names - she screamed them at me until I was sobbing in my room hardly able to breathe."

"Sometimes," Beau said, looking at Lily intently, "sometimes I think verbal abuse can have a worse affect than physical."

Lily shook her head, "I went through that, but I can still be happy with who I am and my friends when I come back here. Physical abuse...it - it's something no one should have to go through."

"All forms of abuse are terrible."

Bea's eyes trailed to Sirius after many of the students had talked, and Bea had tears in her eyes as did many others whilst her hand was clutched tightly in both Violet's and Lily's.

"I ran away from home when I was sixteen. I was in fifth year because of my birthday and all that - but I went to my best friend's house, and even before that...I didn't - I didn't really understand what a family was until I met my friends because my family...wasn't...it wasn't what a family should be.

When I was sorted into Gryffindor, they instantly disowned me. I lived in that house and I endured that pain and sometimes...sometimes if someone's voice gets too loud I can't bear it...I can't cope with it because it just reminds me of her. It reminds me of my mum because shouting usually turned to slapping, and slapping turned to punching because "if I wanted to act like a blood traitor then I can be punished like a muggle would" and it was - I never talk about it, I can't talk about it." He shook his head, hands clasped tightly together and Bea took a shaky breath.

"You're not there anymore," Bea whispered, voice soft and eyes glazed, "and I'll do everything in my power, Sirius, to make sure you never have to go back there."

He smiled softly at her and she smiled back,

Violet was tightening her grip on Bea's hand with every story coming and going and when people turned to her waiting, Bea had to bite her lip to stop herself from yelping in pain.

"You don't need to talk about it," Bea whispered, and she felt Violet's hand slackening around her own ever so slightly, but she shook her head.

"My mum," she blurted out, "she was...she wasn't - well, it was shouting, and I understand that...Sirius," she looked right at the boy who nodded at her, and he reached out to take her other hand, "the shouting is so terrifying, but there was this time when I was younger...before she left me and dad, and she was cooking something and dad was trying to help her and she wouldn't let him.

She kept...kept calling him useless, and lazy and stupid and bloody hell my dad is one of my best friends," she wiped a tear, "so I shouted at her, and she...she just exploded. She was cooking with oil in this pot, but it was...it was frying oil. You know when you cook stuff like that, like chips or something that you fry with a ton of oil and it's bubbling and past boiling and she...she poured it over me.

She just grabbed it off the stove and just screamed in my face as she poured it all over me...it was excruciating and my dad - I've never seen him so angry before.

It didn't need to be official to know he had divorced her then and there, and she left without a care and he had to contact wizards. It was between summers, and I was...I was in so much pain it's nothing I've ever felt before in my life. And the healers...y'know at St. Mungo's, they had - I mean my mums a muggle, and so is dad so they didn't have experience with such a burn like that.

They worked on me for so long, I was there for three weeks and they tried every spell to get those burn marks and blisters off my skin, till I took a potion and they cleared but the pain..." she had shaken her head and it was silent. It was so silent, and she could feel Bea's hand wavering, and she turned her head to see her, to see Bea with her free hand over her mouth to cover her sobs that muffled, and the tears streaming down her face.

Because Bea wanted to be strong for her, for Violet, for her best friend but she couldn't sit there any longer, she couldn't sit there in the silence with her best friend beside her - so she lurched forward - and she sobbed as she held her, and Violet gripped her so tightly that her own tears spilled.

It took her five minutes to calm down, and she watched kids around them wipe their own tears, and Sirius squeezed Violet's hand so tightly that when Bea took her seat, he stood up and hugged her too.

Bea's heart dropped when she realised it was her turn...it was her turn to speak and to tell the students - the survivors what had happened to her and she didn't know what to say. She was lost for words, heart beating so fast that she was sure Lily could probably hear it from beside her.

"You know." Her eyes lifted and met the seventh-year boy who had spoken previously, "I think...I think that the fact that what happened to you is known by students is really fucking shitty. It's not the next gossip - it shouldn't have been, but the fact that you made this for us, the fact that you're even smiling, and laughing...and that you dyed your hair back -

That...is the truest sense of rising above what happened to you. And if you ever get the chance to kill the shithead that did it," he whispered, shaking his head and she saw the fury flash in his eyes, "I'll watch with pride."

"Me too," the first girl to speak nodded. And then, as though on cue did a string of 'me too' ring through the room.

She smiled softly, wiped the tears that fell from her eyes and said, "I think...I think it's good to know that feeling alone doesn't mean we are alone. We share everything, we told each other so much and it's good, I feel good. I might not have shared my own...merlin you're right I think everyone already knows a part of it anyway, but I think when someone listens to what you have to say...it shows you...it shows that people aren't going to judge you no matter if you think it will.

Because abuse comes in all ways. It's scary and...and it's horrifying, and I wish no one in this room and to go through what they did, but the fact that you came here, and the fact that you shared what you did...that takes fucking everything."