Thanks to those to alerted and reviewed! You all have no idea how much it means to me.

Review replies:

Cari- Thanks for your kind words. That is my intention. To create something and someone interesting.

Xxx

Where am I?

Romania darling.

Oh right.

Lyssa sat on the edge of her bed, staring out the tiny window, her eyes trained on the clouds. The white puffs were shaped like things. She could see a unicorn, a cauldron and what looked a bit like a squid. There hadn't been many windows in…wherever she had been.

Now that she thought about it, Lyssa had no idea where she had been. There were big gaps in her memory between now and June. She had moments of awareness, which brought occasional flashes of memory. The voice in her head sometimes told her what she needed to know. Such as where she was and who she was with. She didn't need help recognizing her brother, and nor had she had any trouble with Emily. While she didn't remember the man from earlier, he was familiar enough for her not be scared.

The fear was constant. The little voice told her that they were still out there. The people that had made her forget. Whenever she was able to remember, she would curl up as small as she could, to try and hide. In her head, she could hear her mum screaming, someone laughing. She could feel her own pain, sharp stings across her head and a terrible ache between her legs. Whenever she traced the scars, they felt like a shock.

***You taste sweet half -blood.

He looked up and licked his lips. She whimpered and tried to get away from his red tinged mouth, but he snapped her back down***

The Healers she had met with hadn't told her how she got them. When she had asked, they had just stared and bustled away. Her mum hadn't visited in a while. Not since summer. She wondered if she had gone into hiding. There had been pockets of trouble during her final year of school. Her mum was Muggleborn. Though why wasn't she with her? Mum had always promised to take her if she ran.

***RUN LYSSA RUN!

She couldn't move. All she could do was stay in her closet, hands clamped over her ears. ***

Dad was dead. Danny had told her when he had come for the visit. There had been an accident at work. At least that was what she thought. Danny never answered her questions either, about mum or dad. All he had told her was that they were going on a long holiday to Romania and for her to be good.

I am going to be a good girl, Lyssa thought as she lay back on her bed. After all, Danny's face had been twisted with anxiety to much lately. It was the least she could do after all.

***Be a good girl and we won't hurt you.

She nodded and tried to remain still. The bile rose in her throat and dribbled down her chin when fingers ghosted over her skin once again***

Lyssa hopped off her bed and walked out of the room, stepping over her trunk. The bathroom was down the hall and she needed to wash her hands. She liked to wash her hands. The soap felt good on her dirty hands and hot, hot water made her skin a pretty red. Like cherries, like blood.

The washroom was three doors down. Lyssa began to hum as she ran water over her hands, the soap fading down the drain. She kept it up until her hands began to sting. She was curious about her hands. They were different. A finger on her left hand was missing and the right was scarred up. Lyssa splashed some water on her face and looked up when she reached for a towel.

There was a monster in the glass. Lyssa clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent a scream.

So did the monster. She poked her face. So did the monster. She waved. So did the monster. It slowly dawned on her.

"MY FACE! MY FACE!"

Xxx

It had taken ten minutes to get the Calming Draught down Lyssa's throat. Daniel and Emily had heard her cries from the other side of the house and had run to find her in the bathroom, screaming her head off. She was smashing the mirror and walls, her tiny fists flying.

Daniel had forgotten about mirrors. Lyssa hadn't seen her face since before the incident. The Healers hadn't let her near any reflective surfaces, as she wasn't mentally stable enough to see what she had become. So far, they had been able to avoid this.

The sound of her screams would haunt Daniel for a very long time. He had ended up pinning her down by holding onto her upper half, while Emily grabbed her chin and forced the potion down her throat. Until the potion had taken effect, she had screamed, fear mixing with revulsion and rage. The veins in her neck and face had bulged, and her eyes had bugged as best they could. All she could say was 'MY FACE!' over and over. In her frenzy, Lyssa had cut nearly ripped off Emily's nose and had scratched Daniel's face quite badly. Of course, those had been quickly healed away.

"She's asleep now."

Emily sat next to Daniel on their bed. He nodded and let her put her arms around his waist.

"Maybe we should…send her back."

Daniel's head jerked up rather violently.

"No."

"Danny, she's not ready. Did you see the bathroom? It looked like something exploded in there."

"I am not sending her back to England. They'll find her."

She's all I have left, he added silently. Her and you.

They were really that alone. Their father had been cast out of his family for marrying their mother and their mother's parents had died when Daniel was a small child, long before Lyssa was even born. Daniel took any promises he made very seriously, and he had promised his mother to watch over Lyssa. He could have left her in the permanent ward, sharing a space with Lockhart and the Longbottoms, doomed to have to accept autographs from the former for many years, maybe even the rest of her life.

It hadn't hit him until he had seen her in that state. That everything was really gone.