A/N This is one of my comeback fics. I hope that you like it, and please please review as it helps me to improve, and also to know if my work is being read or not. This is dedicated to, any person who has ever had to hide away from other people for the reasons outlined here. Many thanks to my wonderful, wonderful talented beta-Reader Cyropi, who is also my co-author for SnapeSummer, check that out if you have time.
Disclaimer: I make no claim on Harry Potter, it is the property of J.K. Rowling, and whoever else. I make no monetary gain of this piece of work, and neither have I consciously stolen any thing from any body else. Now on with the fic....
Late at night the halls are empty. The corridors are filled with silence and stillness. Shadows from the flickering torches spring about, echoing the silence.
Some areas are completely dark, hiding everything. In the midst of this prowls a larger shadow slipping, passing and merging with the shadows, his black robes swirl around him. He prowls the corridors, irritable and tense.
His face wears for the first time all day, an unguarded expression. He walks silently, making barley any noise out of habit.
In a classroom a young girl is sitting, a piece of parchment by her side. She weeps silently, alone. Beside her wand emits a soft glow, which illuminates her face. Her brown hair is in disarray and her tears fall thick and fast. She stops weeping and dries her tears almost savagely. A wave of misery and hopelessness rolls over and engulfs her and her tears fall again unwillingly. She rocks in emotional agony, but makes no sound, she is too wary for that.
He continues down his way, continually watchful for whoever would walk at night. The gaunt angles of his face tighten as he thinks he hears a sound – but it is merely Peeves.
She makes an involuntary sound as she probes her arms, her face, her legs. She keens softly, expressing her hurt, fear and loneliness. The wand-light catches her bruises, the blood-red writing on the parchment.
He starts as he hears a low sound, from one of the deserted classrooms. He merges into the shadow, takes out his wand.
She silences herself and with a surge of fear hears someone coming. She whispers, the wand goes out. She crawls under a desk, taking care to avoid her bruises
The sound stops, and he stops also. The keening of misery caught his ear, stopped the breath in his throat. Shaking off old ghosts, silently he walks into the darkened classroom. There is no one there but he sees traces. A pool of liquid catches his eye – water? (or tears?, a voice whispers in his mind.) There is no sound …or is there?
A short, barely discernable, intake of breath. He directs his wand to the sound and the light falls on something...white?
" Come out whoever you are."
His voice rings in the silence sounding unnaturally loud.
The game is up. She comes out and stands up clutching her wand. By the light of his wand her face is shadowy, her marks hidden. She is glad of that. She tries to explain why she is there, she couldn't sleep. Stuttering lies, as clear as day. She is a Slytherin, a first-year. He is surprised it is she.
He watches her lie, painfully obviously. Interrupting her halting flow he asks her to tell the truth. He walks out into the corridor and she is forced to follow. She puts hr hands up to cover her face, revealing as she does the bruise on her arms. By the light of the torch she tells, and he listens.
She was hiding, she admitted. From who? It didn't matter. People. Her face flushes at that point, he lets the matter rest.
He snaps at her to look at him when she answers. She raises her head and is told to drop her hands. She hears a hiss of indrawn breath.
By the light of the torches, standing there in the flickering light, her face is obvious; the dark bruises standing out against the fair skin. The eyes are red, and swollen where they are not blue and purple.
He asks how did she get these? She fell. Where? In the common room. She recoils at his statement that he will walk her to the hospital wing. She explains that she can heal them herself. But why didn't she? He was her Head of House and she was his responsibility.
He sees her lies and wonders why she was upset. Her red-rimmed eyes betray her lie that, yes she was fine, and no she wasn't in any trouble.
He knows that there is more to her story but she will not tell. He tells her that he will escort her to the Common room. On the way there he questions her to as the bruises on her arms and her legs. He receives the same flushing, the same lies. He tells her in his snappish way that the Head of House is not merely just an office. She understands but keeps her silence.
She goes grateful, that she had got off so lightly. At the common room she enters there.
Back in the halls her remembers the parchment that he picked up. He unfolds it and reads, the red writing standing out in menacing lettering.
You'll be next to die. This will never stop.
You are nothing. I'm always watching and you will never escape me.
Remember this.
Old ghosts come back to him and the whispers return. He is now silent and watchful, the torches are burning low. An echo of a similar scene is seen, played out in his mind.
Only this time, he is hiding.