Leave Out All the Rest

Chapter 38: Up

POV: Emily

[[TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF ABUSE]]

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A scream shot across the night sky.

It was my scream. It still burned my lungs, even when it echoed across the darkness. It was surrounding me, that darkness, swallowing everything whole. I couldn't see the trees or their leaves—they were shadowed monsters, caging me, forcing me to the ground. I felt the grass like actual blades sinking into my bare skin, frozen, wet, sharp. I tried clawing at it, to get myself up, but all I pulled up were roots and dirt. 

I screamed again as I was yanked up before my back collided against rocks. 

Instead of seeing stars from the hit, I saw the full moon beginning to take up the night sky. 

A warning.

God, let me die. Please.

"Change of plans," hot breath touched my ear, making ice run in my veins. I let out another cry, of disgust, of fear, of shame. "I was going to wait until the end of term. I was going to take you then. No one would've thought twice about it; young, foolish, lonely girl runs away with her older boyfriend. Typical."

I flailed violently, trying to free my hands from beneath his body. 

His hands went around my neck, squeezing to sedate me. 

"Then Potter and Malfoy started nosing about," Lance growled in my ear. "They started asking other Slytherins questions, trying to find anyone who might've seen me missing on full moons. Then Harry Potter visited my father in Azkaban. It was only a matter of time before they knew."

"Please," I begged, looking past his gold eyes to find the moon. "Please no more. Please."

He had taken everything. There was nothing left. 

God, let me die. Please.

Lance laughed, baring sharp teeth at my tears. He took his left hand from around my throat, tapping my sore, bleeding cheek. "I had a girl during summer," he said, a delighted, twisted glint in his eye. "I never understood it, the hunger of this life until she crossed my path. There's nothing like it, but the pack taught me patience. Strategy. Father was the opposite, but then again, he had the Dark Lord's name to run free before. We don't. So I had to wait, but the hunger kept growing, the animals in the forest don't come close to—"

I sobbed hysterically when his leg forced my thighs apart again. I couldn't survive it once more.

"Then I saw you that night," he continued with a haunting grin. "Alone and defenseless. Pathetic. You practically wrapped yourself up with a bow for me, Emily. All I had to do was smile for you to jump head first into me."

I was never alone that night—I made myself alone. There was a difference.

"I can't promise it won't hurt," Lance said, pulling himself up a few centimeters. He looked up at the moon like she was a lover, one who owned him instead. His mistress. "But your time is up now."

 Lance Greyback's twisted, cruel human side had taken what it had wanted from me, now his cursed werewolf side was going to devour the rest. 

He shuddered, stiffening as a scream of his own rippled past his lips. It sounded like agony before his bones started to crack. His flesh started shedding off, gold eyes transforming green. His nails, now long, thick, and jagged sunk into my skin, pulling at it like he wanted it to come off, too. New blood poured out of me, mixing with what he had already made me drip out. 

I had begged for death, from him and whoever could grant such a wish, but all I could hear was what he had said, 'Alone and defenseless'. 

I had not been.

I have never been.

Not since coming to Hogwarts.

It was the faces of those who smiled upon seeing me every morning that brought strength to my bruising, shattered body. It was Scorpius' warm embrace that forced me to move my arms, hands searching the area around me as Greyback continued to growl. It was James' laugh that made me kick up scraped, weak knees so my feet could be planted on the ground. It was Nia's continuous encouragements that made me twist my body, finding my left palm flat against the ground and the other reaching for my discarded wand. It was Rose's brilliant mind and mandatory study sessions that forced my brain to concentrate and summon all the magic in my blood despite feeling teeth sink into my stomach.

It was Al, Lucas, Lily, and Liam that made me shout, "Stupefy!"

Greyback shot backward. His howl filling the dark night. 

The beast was awake now.

It was Louis, Freddie, and Dominique that made me shout, "Confringo!"

A burst of fire shot out of my wand, engulfing Greyback. He roared, paws clawing at the flames, and I took my chance.  I didn't know where in the Forbidden Forest he had dragged me to, but I knew I had to hit the edge of something; so I ran. I forced my tired, shaking legs to move. I forced my bruised, cut, sliced, invaded body to move.

The voices in my head were a whirlwind, throwing words like filthy, destroyed, broken at me, but the cold wind whipping in my ears drowned them out.

I knew I was going to lose the war, but I was not going to lose it among the darkness.  

X

The sound of my feet crushing grass, twigs, and pebbles was replaced by my name being shouted at me.

My eyes opened wide, my heart pounding in my chest, bruising my already hurting bones.

I was in my dormitory, lying on my four-poster, wrapped in wrinkled, damp ruby sheets with the golden sun pouring in from the open windows. 

The forest was a nightmare. Inside and outside my head.

"Are you all right?" James murmured as he hovered at the edge of my bed, his warm, brown eyes holding shadows of ever-constant concern whenever they were looking at me. 

I pulled my t-shirt down after it had rose up, hiding the thick, red scar in the shape of teeth on the skin of my stomach among all the other lines that were not fading white. "Was I asleep for long?" I asked him.

James had started to look down at what I was quick to hide, but at the sound of my voice, he met my eyes once more. "It's almost noon," he said to me in the same careful tone and volume he had been using for days now. "Rose and Harper said not to wake you, but I thought you'd might...Freds and me are going to Hogsmeade. Honeydukes is introducing their new line of ice cream."

"You want me to come?" I asked past my dry lips, pushing myself up into a sitting position so I could untangle myself from my sheets. 

"Freddie does," he said with a clearing of his throat. "Told me to remind you about an ice cream date you owe him or something."

I used the back of my hand to wipe the sweat from my forehead. The sun had been shining bright and intense all week, signaling the start of summer. It was rare for it to start so soon, but it put everyone in high spirits to be able to strip down their layers, expose skin to the sky in hopes for bronzed glows, and take in the joy of the outside.

"I'll just tell him you're tired," James then said when my silence lasted too long for him. "You had a session with your Healer yesterday, I know, and usually you—"

"Maria-Salome Lopez."

James blinked at me. "What?"

"Maria-Salome Lopez," I repeated, taking a deep breath. "She's a—"

"I know who Lopez is," he told me, still confused. "She's in my year. What of her? Do you want to invite her, too?"

"She fancies you," I told him. The bewilderment did not leave his brown gaze. "Has so since your First Year. She thinks you're funny and cute. She also thinks you don't know she exists, which is horrible if that's true, James. She's beautiful."

He let out a breath of his own, fixing himself to stand tall rather than halfway leaning down to me when realization hit. "I see," there was a frustration in the two small words he was trying to contain. "You think I should notice her."

"Have you ever actually spoken to her?" I did not wait for his answer. "I'd say she was part Veela, because she enchants you. She is sweet and smart, but witty, too. She could definitely keep up with you—"

"Why are you trying to sell Lopez to me, Taylor?" James demanded, the frustration pouring out of him. I winced at the sound, a reflex from my damaged body and mind, and it made him pause. With more luck, he managed to force his anger away. Unfortunately, hurt remained behind. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'm not her," I told him, pulling my knees up to my chest. I hugged them close to me, like it was keeping me from falling to pieces. "I've never been girls like Maria-Salome, nor will I ever be."

"Yeah," James muttered, "it's because you're not other girls that I love you."

I winced again. "I struggle every day to be functional," I told him with a murmur of my own. "These other girls, they wake up pretty and sane, and I don't know what that is like. And I don't know if I'll ever know what it's like not to fight with the voices in my head."

"Taylor," he spoke again, "I don't look at you and see your mental health issues. I don't look at you and see the past you're so afraid of. Yeah, I understand they're your struggles, but all I want is to be there for you while you overcome them. All I want to do is be there when you finally see the strength I know you have. All I want to do is love you as you learn to love yourself, too."

I blinked away from all the emotion in his eyes. Everything about James was screaming out at me, filling the walls of my dormitory with his adoration and loyalty. I had heard the same song since I was twelve. It was the background noise to our every interaction. It was the sweet melody that lingered over our heads whenever we met up in the Great Hall in the mornings, pretending to be catching up on our reading, rather than needing to be around each other. 

I don't know when I convinced myself I couldn't have James, but I knew it was something that had to happen. The voices in my head grew crueler and far more terrifying as I did—as my feelings for James did, too. They would destroy him. They would tear him and the purity of my affection to shreds. The voices convinced me I was not worthy of him. And they had long convinced me I was not worthy of anything, so why would James be any different?

"What if," I started, small and shaky, "you wake up one day and realize I am not what you wanted?"

James inhaled, carefully moving to sit at the edge of my bed. I did not tense at the action, but felt myself grow nervous when he turned to look at me, those eyes of his piercing right through to my tormented soul. "Because I haven't for the past four years," he said. "Honestly, I don't think I ever will. You're kinda it."

Despite the small ripples of anxiety on my skin, I reached for his hand. He was surprised at the action. I had not touched him in so long. I had not touched anyone in so long. I could tell he was afraid to close his hand, so I braved myself to give his fingers a press. 

He clung on.

"After everything...After my parents, Greyback, and the...and the miscarriage—" At the sob that forced my words to choke together, James used his same carefulness to push himself closer to me. When he noticed my lack of violent, scared reflex, he put his arm around my shoulders. It gave me the strength to continue. "They say there's only one way to go, and that's up."

"Sounds like the standard bollocks Healers and clueless adults say," he mumbled.

I almost laughed. Almost.

"There's a hole, James," I said, "and I am at the bottom of it. You aren't there. You are up. I'm going to try my best to climb my way out, but it won't be easy. If I fall back down, promise not to jump in. Promise to let me defeat this on my own."

The sour expression taking up his face made me laugh. Actually laugh. I knew it would prove difficult for him to swear not to give in to his instinct of saving me from any form of inconvenience, but he would comply in the end. Because surrender was a loud curse word he exhaled out, I did another impossible thing. I put my arms around him. It startled him before I carefully put my lips on his.

He quivered at my touch, but did not let his hands move from either side of my mattress. 

When I pulled back, he looked like a bludger had hit him on the head. 

"Can we, uh," he mumbled, daze and enchanted, "Can we do that again, please? I forgot to do something."

"Do what?"

"Kiss you back."

I laughed again, pressing a fleeting kiss to his cheek. "Maybe later. I have an ice cream date with Freddie I can't cancel."

He frowned. "Well, I'm asking Lopez out, then.

"Oh, are you?" I asked as I stood from my four-poster, adjusting my pajama bottoms. 

"Yes. Well, depends on your answer."

"What answer? You didn't even ask a question, James." I turned to him just as I pulled out a sweater and jeans from my trunk. While it was summer out and most others were displaying their pretty dresses and cute shorts, I did not have that courage just yet. Not when my skin still had scars from a lost battle against a werewolf. 

He rolled his eyes at me. "It was implied."

"Was it?"

"Emily," he groaned, frustration coming back, but this time less in severity. "Are you finally going to agree to be my girlfriend?"

I felt my heart stop. Fear was present, but there was something else, too. 

Gryffindor courage, said the voices. It exists sometimes for you. Use it.