Chapter 6

Two weeks passed and classes weren't on Bea's mind. For a few days, James allowed himself the hope that she was getting better and soon she would be herself again, but he knew not to believe in something so unrealistic for longer than he had, it would've consumed him.

Bea didn't have a nightmare as she slept after the night she kissed James, she slept so near him that night in her dorm that it was as though he was shielding her from her own thoughts, that she could sleep peacefully and he was there to help her.

She knew she needed him, she really did, she just wished she didn't need him as much.

She didn't talk much unless she was in the right mood, and when she was talking she only talked to two people, James...and Beau. It was very clear that her friends were pissed, sometimes the pain in Remus' eyes was switched to anger, a tiny flicker when he caught her talking to the boy - replying, and sometimes reacting instead of being still and silent.

Violet's heart shattered when she realised her friend found comfort in a stranger rather than her and she longed to talk to her, to reach out and be there but she was too scared to. Sirius didn't regret putting salt in Beau's tea one morning just to see the smirk on his lips fade because Bea was his friend, she was his Bea and this boy he didn't know wasn't taking her from him. Peter was silent always, just watching with anger and annoyance and he wished to approach her, he longed to because he wanted his best friend back more than anything.

Bea hadn't seen Bertie, not at dinner, not during the day or anytime as she wandered, she didn't see him. He avoided her because he couldn't bear it, he couldn't bear the sight of her and every time he passed her and she didn't notice, it broke his heart even more.

She wished for her friends to say something to her, to finally snap and shout and scream their heads off at her about her reasoning to talk to Beau and not them. She didn't care if they created a scene or if they called her every insult under the sun but they weren't helping with their silence, it made it worse in more ways than one.

She was with Beau currently and he was talking a mile a minute whilst her focus was on the canvas in front of her. She couldn't paint well as much as she'd liked too but it did clear her mind, Beau said all she needed was practice and when she asked how he would know he merely told her he was incredible at the piano.

"Your friend is fucking hot by the way," Beau commented as she streaked blues for the sky, dark blues and light blues contrasted on the canvas and she almost had the pleasure of not hearing him but it floated through her ear.

"Which one?" was her answer and it was as quiet as usual and the dungarees that splattered with more paint than the canvas would need to be washed more than she liked to admit.

"Short haired, kinda broody, sexy-"

"Merlin." She cut him off, throwing him a glare, "Violet, then?"

"So, you got it at sexy, huh?" he smirked, throwing her a wink and she rolled her eyes, flipping him off and turning back to her canvas.

"You won't get far with that," Bea said. She decided to have a sort of 'fuck it' attitude when it came to painting, so when her paintbrush wasn't cleaning how she wanted it to, she merely leaned over and painted a long streak of paint down Beau's arm.

"Was that necessary?" he asked, glaring at the girl who didn't smile or make any indication of what she did until after a very long minute of his glaring, she winked and turned around.

"Also, Phoebe - yes, I know your full name, sue me, I am simply irresistible so why wouldn't I get far?" she rolled her eyes wishing to dump the entire bucket of paint over his head but she would be lying if she said she didn't like his company.

It was refreshing.

"Because she loves someone else," she merely shrugged very simply.

"So, she's taken? Dammit!" he grumbled, and Bea would have laughed but she didn't.

"No. She's single, but she loves someone else - she's in love with them," she liked the feeling of talking again, it was nice and it felt nice to have someone to talk about normal stuff with instead of the topic being on her, it was helping her.

"You're really great at pretending it's not you," he scoffed and her head snapped around to see the smirk on his lips and his eyebrows wiggling and she finally sat the brush that she was using down. She moved to sit beside him against the wall of the empty room that Dumbledore had converted for her into an art room, none of the teachers cared if they were catering to her every need more than they needed to, because what she went through was far more painful than anything any students, and most professors had ever gone through, and they wanted to make her as comfortable as possible.

Her eyes didn't look at him but she sat very close to him, her legs crossed and her hands in her lap and he was staring down at her but silent unlike usual, "she didn't talk to me before summer."

"Fall out?"

"A lot happened," Bea knew she would be talking a lot but as much as she hated it, she was okay with it, "I got hurt by these boys, they used the cruciatus curse on me and I was in hospital unconscious but I could hear everything and Vi confessed how she felt to me, she told me she loved me and she just hoped I didn't hear it but I did.

When I got out a while later I said to her about it, I asked her if she loved me and she kissed me and I pushed her off of me and she was...humiliated. I tried to talk to her, I tried everything I could possibly think of but she's stubborn...really stubborn. I left school for summer and we weren't talking, I was going to invite her to my house with all my friends but then...it happened.

I would've died and we wouldn't have been talking and she can barely look at me now," she didn't even realise that her head was on his shoulder until she stopped talking and she became aware of everything around her.

"Holy shit," Beau whispered, "so you almost died then? I didn't know that."

"People only tend to care about the big scary guy trying to get some," she grumbled quietly and her head didn't move from his shoulder, "he was a werewolf, and so much had happened before that...he came back, probably to finish what he had started and I-I pleaded, I pleaded so much for him to stop but he's a monster, he ripped me to shreds. I have the scars to prove that much.

My b-brother...Remus, he held me through it all, he didn't care about himself he just cared about me and I said goodbye to everyone, I was going to die, bu- but I didn't, I was spared."

"For a good reason, too," Beau pointed out and then pointed to himself, "wouldn't have met me."

She rolled her eyes, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't amused, "how could I even carry on without you."

"You're warming up to me, Bea, I know it," he smirked, throwing an arm around her whilst she sighed, "tell me it all. Tell me about your friends...about your boyfriend, how did that happen?"

"He's my brothers best friend, he calls me Bumble," she wished to laugh, "last year he was failing herbology so I tutored him and we became so much closer, it seems so simple saying it like that."

"How did he react?"

"He - he didn't," she shook her head, running her hand through her hair, "he was silent when my parents told him what happened, stiff as a board and his eyes were on me and nothing else and I was blank, I still am for the most part but he didn't react.

My friends, Vi...Sirius, Peter, all of them went crazy. They cried and they hugged and they whispered to me how much they loved me but it was different, they walked on eggshells and that was it. But - but James, he helped me.

I asked him once before school, and he told me...he told me that if he gave himself time to react then the anger would take control of him, that he wouldn't hesitate to kill the man who did this to me."

"You're not telling me about someone," Beau said truthfully, and he was right, she wasn't, because talking about the boy was the hardest thing she had to do. Bertie could make her laugh in any given situation possible, without Violet last year, or the amount of drama that happened, she always had Bertie.

"I fancied this boy last year before I realised I liked James and we went on one date and we kissed and we both felt nothing but we decided we were still best friends anyway," she didn't realise the tears until one fell into her lap, "his name is Bertie. He's my best friend, all of them are and Vi will always be my bestest friend in the whole world but Bertie is just - he's something special and I miss him.

He hasn't talked to me at all, he wasn't at my house and he's avoided me," she shook her head, wiping her tears, "I know it's just hard for him, but I want him back."

"Well it's fucking hard for you too," Beau frowned. It was obvious that Bea just wanted things to go back to normal, she wanted her friends back and her happiness too and she would sell her soul for it and he knew that but she was making progress, she was talking more than she ever had before and he could hear the descriptions as she talked.

Her voice was sad but it was soothing...like dripping honey, someone described it as that in the hall and he agreed. She cared a lot about her friends and he wished he could've moved last year to see what she was like, he was curious about her.

She was sad, distraught and in so much pain and no matter how much he tried to look past that, he couldn't think of a cheery bubbly girl to take her place, he couldn't see her with a smile even if he tried his hardest to picture it.

"You need to talk to your friends," he spoke quietly and she frowned, "if not for yourself, for them."

"I can't," she heaved a sigh, "I'm talking to my friend right now."

He let the smirk erupt on his lips and when she noticed it, she rolled her eyes like he thought she would do, "so we're friends then?"

She scoffed, it wasn't amusedly or sadly - no emotion showed on her face but it was enough to show her affection. She was grateful to him because she could talk to James but it was strained from the sadness and no matter how much she wished to believe it not true, it was, she just couldn't get away from the sadness even if she ran.

But Beau was her friend now, officially, and he didn't care if she was sad, he didn't try and fix her or piece her back together because he knew that was something she had to do herself, he was just there, and it was nice.

"Yeah. I'd say so."