VI.   one step forward and three steps back

Devore wondered when she'd finally get to the point with Draco when she was ready to give up. When she'd finally have enough of the suffering he put her through. She felt like she had nobody. No one to talk to about what happened with her father or anyone that would remotely understand. But she had Draco. They were only two who understood each other and could see each other for more than what people branded them to be.

But Draco didn't know how to love her the way she loved him. He knew how to hold her when she cried, or what to say when she was upset, but he didn't know how to say those words. Mostly because he didn't know what they meant. Everyone at Hogwarts knew that they were toxic for each other but as long as she had him, she forgot about what was happening in her personal life. Devore always wondered to herself where their relationship went wrong. What caused him to turn on her so easily?

It was always one step forward and three steps back with Draco. He loved her until she made him mad and then he acted as if she was beneath him. It was a dangerous game they played. Devore never allowed herself to see herself with anyone other than Draco. She was afraid to. She wanted to leave him, but she couldn't. Leaving him would mean that the whole in her heart would open back up and she couldn't handle that. Perhaps she was blindsided by his actions. Or she was just so desperate for love that she overlooked the lies and manipulation. It was heartbreaking, honestly.

She always wondered which side of him she would get that day. The boy who walked her to her classes and held her books for her or the boy who sent her away crying. Some days she got lucky but today wasn't that day. Devore sat on his bed, twiddling her fingers, watching as said boy stared out the window of his room. None of them said a word to each other and she was beginning to get afraid.

"Are you going to say something?" He finally asked,   looking her way.

"What do you want me to say, Draco? I'm sorry? Cause I'm not."

"Why do you always blame me? Everything I do is never right for you." Draco said dramatically.

"You're acting like such a child—"

Before she could blink, he was in front of her and he pulled her up by her arms. "How do you expect me to fix this when you're always acting so pissed off with me?" He snapped and shook her.

"Because 99% person of the time, I am." She seethed.

"It's like you don't even want to be with me. What, are you falling out of love with me? Is there someone else?"

"What? There's never been anyone else. Why can't you understand that?"

He shook her again, more harshly that time. "Am I not good enough for you anymore?" He seethed.

"You? What about me? I've never been good enough for you!" She yelled in his face and felt her emotions overtake.

"Stop yelling!"

"What are gonna do, hit me?"

Devore was not the one to let anyone get to her because she didn't care what people did. It seemed that no matter what she did, she would never be good enough for anyone. She thought about how her dad would feel if he knew what her situation was with Draco. He would certainly try to hurt him, maybe even try to use one of the unforgivable curses if it meant he wouldn't be sent to Azkaban. But at the end of the day, Devore made her own choices. She thought her own thoughts. The situation she was in with Draco was her own doing, not anybody else's.

But she felt like such an idiot for allowing it to get this far, for allowing herself to stay in the same position. To Draco, she was nothing more than a people in the list of boulders. She was small. Unworthy.

The mascara she was wearing ran down her face. Her cheek stung terribly, and she was in a state of shock, too shocked to move her hair out of her face. Draco's eyes that once resembled clear waters now faded into a heavy grey, reminding her of the permanent sad sky that her eyes would always see. He wasn't the same person she knew before, or maybe he was. Devore pushed past him and ran out of his room, ignoring Draco's calls for her to come back and that he was sorry.

Don't cry.Don't cry.Don't cry. Devore kept repeating to herself in her head as she ran down the hallway in the direction of the girl's bathroom. Don't be pathetic, Devore. Don't ever let them see you cry. She was so focused on trying not to cry that she accidentally bumped into somebody.

"Devore? What's wrong?" It was Fred.

She quickly tried to get away. "Get out of my way, Weasley."

"Weasley? We're still on that?" He asked as she started to walk away. She didn't answer him. "Devore, stop!" He grabbed her arm and pulled her back, stunned as he saw what was wrong.

The right side of her face was bright red, an obvious hand mark was starting to appear, and her lip was busted and bleeding. Different emotions clouded in her eyes and for a split second, Fred saw the old Devore. In that moment, she was mean or cruel. She was hurt. Mascara was smudged around her eyes and steaming down her face. But before he could say anything, Devore ran around him and sprinted away.

He didn't know what he would say, he wasn't good at things like this.  Even when he would see his little sister crying he still didn't know how to comfort her. He was guy after all. But he confused. This was Devore Taylor, the Hogwarts rich mean girl. Devore didn't cry. She insulted him every chance he got and his family and friends. Which is why he couldn't understand why his heart hurt to see her so sad.

When she entered the bathroom, Devore ran into one of the stalls and quickly locked the door. She pressed her back to the wall and released a loud cry. She slapped her hand over her mouth and slid down the wall until she was sat on the floor. She didn't want to cry. She didn't deserve to cry. She wasn't the kind of girl who got to cry. She had everything she ever wanted. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth never having to worry about her parents not being able to pay their dues. Rich girls don't get to be sad. Girls who treat people like shit don't get to cry.

But Devore was still a teenager. In that moment, all she wanted was her dad. Memories of him burning her in his arms when she couldn't sleep came in flashes, slong with Isaac always telling her that he loved her. And then she saw his body in a casket, and then the people lowering it into the ground. Her entire world was now buried below her feet.

Devore cried louder and pressed her hands to her chest, feeling like her chest was about to explode. When she was finally done, her throat felt raw and scratchy. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her makeup was ruined and her black mascara made her look like a raccoon. Her lips were bruised and busted along with the right side of her face. She didn't feel like the pretty girl she was raised to be. The girl who was always taught to stand tall and look her best. No, Devore looked and felt like a failure. She was failing herself and she was failing her father.

Devore felt like her mother. A beautiful woman who was rotting from the inside. Chanel Taylor, her maiden name being Young, was beautiful at her age. Her father always told her this, about how he thought she was the most beautiful person he ever saw. But love can change a person, and losing that love makes it worse.

She didn't want to be like her mother, a broken hearted woman being dragged to the deepest ends of hell where her only happiness was drowning her life away in liquor bottles. Her mother was a train wreck and Devore refused to be the same.

Devore knew her family's reputation and what people expected of her. To be perfect and never let her head fall. She was a Taylor, a rich girl, a Slytherin. To have perfect grades, to be the perfect student. No one ever told her that perfection was nonexistent. Devore was foreign tired of that standard, to always keep up the perfect image of being a Taylor daughter. The urge to be perfect died the day her father did. Nobody understood it. Not many people cared to try and understand. They judged her without giving the time to understand her situation. Perhaps that's why Devore suddenly decided to give them all a big fuck you!

Devore went to the kitchens that night, not having the urge to sleep. She ended up finding the cabinet full of alcohol, having to use Alohomora to break the lock. Fire whisky, Brandy, Daisyroot Draught, Gin, and multiple others stared her in the face. Devore always had to hide her mother's empty liquor bottles from Bennet, so she should have hated the thought of drinking.

But Devore desperately wanted to erase everything that happened today from her memory. So she grabbed a bottle of Firewhisky and poured the substance down her throat, the burning sensation making her eyes water. She let out a small sob when she lowered the bottle and clamped a hand over her mouth to quiet herself. She took another swig, and then another, and another until she finished the whole bottle.

"Taylor?" A raspy voice interrupted her thoughts. Devore nearly gave herself whiplashed from how hast her turned around. Fred stood in the doorway of the kitchen. His long red hair was messy and his tired eyes flickered between her and the bottle resting in her hands.

"Go away." She demanded.

He edged closer to her and she shot him a death glare.  He held up his hands in surrender. "Calm down, Ice Princess. I'm here for the same reasons you are."

He motioned to the alcohol in the cabinet. "I didn't come here to drink." She scoffed.

"Really? Cause the bottle in your hand and empty bottle on the table says otherwise."

Devore still glared at him. He couldn't practically see the flames behind those dark brown eyes. Fred let out a low chuckle and took long strides to the alcohol cabinet. She watched his every move. He glanced at all the bottles and hummed. "Let's see, Firewhisky or Gin? Princess, what's your favorite?"

She didn't answer him, only staring at him with hard eyes and tight lips which only amused him more.  "Okay, don't have a favorite. That's okay. I guess we'll settle on more Firewhisky." Fred took a bottle from the shelf and faced her, a mischievous grin on his face.  "What do you say?"

Devore glanced between him, the bottle in his hand,  and then they flickered to the bottle in her own hand. She let put a frustrated sigh. "Fine."

Devore quickly found out she despised alcohol, not only for what it does to people, but because she can't handle it at all. No matter how much she tried drowning out her thoughts, she couldn't get past the awful taste in her mouth. But Fred had no trouble at all. He placed the bottle of half empty Firewhisky on the table. "Y'now Ice Princess, I thought you didn't drink?"

Devore swirled her fingers around the glass bottle, her brown eyes boring into the dark color liquid. "I don't."

His brows furrowed. "But you're—"

"Everyone needs a release every once in a while,  Weasley." She said roughly, not looking him in the eyes. 

Fred blinked as he stared at the tired girl in front of him. The bruised side of her face was shielded by her curtain of hair. "Want to tell me what release you're looking for?" He pressed on.

"I'm not telling you shit, Carrot Top."

""Does it have to do with what I saw earlier?" 

Devore stopped twirling her fingers at those words. She let out a noise that was between a laugh and cry.  Fred was the last person she wanted to share her life with. She spent an entire year building up a bullet proof wall around her. She tried so hard to keep her perfect façade in play; always keeping herself together and never letting anyone see her at her breaking point.  But that wasn't the case right now and the feeling of utter embarrassment ran through her body. "Maybe,  maybe not. What's it to you?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. Pretty girl with a bruises on her face is caught trying to drown herself in an alcoholic coma. Seems like a cry for help to me."

She finally looked up at him and scoffed. "I don't need anyone's help, Weasley." She said again.

He stared at her with a look that she couldn't identify. "Are you sure about that?"

Devore didn't say anything after that and tore her eyes away from him, toying with her finger nails. She wasn't the person to share her life with others. She refused to. It took everything in her to not tell him to 'fuck off' and leave her alone. But Fred also knew her. She was just eleven when they met. Devore grew up with the Weasley family. He picked on her all the time but he also made her laugh uncontrollably.

Fred was an absolute mess but he was an exciting mess. The kind of mess you thrived to be around and it made you excited to see what he was going to do next. After a long silence, a grin appeared on his face. "So, want to tell me what you're doing here then?"

Her analyzing gaze turned into a wicked glare. "It's none of your business, Weasley." She seethed again.

Fred laughed childishly. "Oh come on, Dev. I thought we were having a moment?"

Dev. It was the first nickname she received from him. She felt herself not being able to fight back a smile. She wanted to miss him but she couldn't. Because Devore had ruined her chance to ever have a relationship with the Weasleys again. She shook her head. "I'd hardly call this a moment."

"What? A couple of friends sitting together at what, two AM, having a couple drinks. Sounds like a moment to me."

She narrowed her eyes. "We're not friends."

"We used to be," Fred stated and tapped his fingers against the bottle of alcohol. "Ron used to get so mad when I would steal you away from him. He would say 'she's my friend, not yours'!" He imitated his brother's voice.

Devore let out a giggle. She didn't remember. Fred and George were always trying to corrupt her, and Ron would get so frustrated with them because she was supposed to be his guest. The whole family would laugh. The memories hurt like weapons, and she so desperately tried to forget them. But they were burned in the back of her mind forever.

Fred felt his stomach turn at the giggle because it had been so long since he heard her laugh. Her eyes always squinted when she laughed and she had smile lines. Her brushed lips turned into a frown, and Fred watched her stare at the table. "Yeah, well, that's in the past." She almost whispered.

"It doesn't have to stay in the past."

"We're older now, Carrot Top. We're not kids anymore. I'm not a kid anymore."

"You used to always say growing up was overrated."

Devore smiled to herself thinking about the old her. The old Devore who thought life was so beautiful and who woke up every day excited to start a new day. She missed the way she used to be. She missed being excited when it rained because she was able to stay inside with her family watching home movies. She missed being excited when it snowed because she could go outside and make snow angels. She missed going to shops with her mother—whether it was antique shops or clothing stores. She missed being able to smile and laugh without it hurting. But that was the old Devore and she wasn't coming back.

"You're beautiful when you smile, Taylor." Fred's voice broke her from her thoughts. She didn't realize she was smiling at all. Devore studied his eyes. They were brown, but a warm brown. Mischief swirled around in his irises. Her heart beat quickened under his gaze. "Don't get used to it." She said quietly.

After a while of more alcohol flooding in her systems, they decided it was time to leave. A noise left her throat as her head fell to the side and she laughed. Her vision was blurry. Fred laughed at her. "You're so drunk."

"No shit." She giggled and pressed her hands to her face.

He held up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Devore picked her head up and squinted her eyes but she wasn't able to see clearly. "Shut up." She groaned.

Fred laughed like a little kid and he threw his head back, the sound echoing. He saw her eyes closing and she looked exhausted. "Okay Taylor, time to get you back to your common room." He declared and stood up from the chair.

Devore groaned and swatted his hands away. "I can't do it myself." She grumbled.

When she stood up and quickly fell back down, Fred went in to help her. "You can't even stand properly—"

"Yes, I can! See?" She argued with him and stood up fully. She was prepared to swat his hands away from her again, when her legs buckled from under her.

"Okay, okay, okay." Fred quickly said and lifted her up bridal style. "Your legs are going to give out, Taylor."

"Put me down!"

"I'm not going to leave you to fend for yourself, Dev." He declared and started his journey to her common room.

Devore whined but abruptly wrapped her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulders. Her head felt as if a thousand wands were shooting at her. "This reminds me of the time you fell down the fell at the Burrow and I had to carry you back home. Only this time you don't have broken leg." He told her.

She let out a defeated laugh. "Yeah, just a broken heart." She slipped out without thinking.

Fred didn't say anything after and his pace slowed down. He looked at the girl he once knew him his arms. Devore used to be the sun to him. She was never not smiling. She was kind, giving, and benevolent. And then something happened and now it was like she couldn't stand to even wake up in the mornings. She wasn't happy like she used to be and even if she didn't act sad, you could see it in her eyes. Devore Taylor was broken.