Thank you to Dance along the light of the day, Ghee Buttersnaps 15, Written Sparks, and The Dupilcate for reviewing!

"…and that will be all for today." Professor Vector finally concluded. Katie immediately swept her books, quill, and ink into her bag, eager to leave. "Please come up and collect your essays when I call your name. Gareth Andrews, Laura Aplan, Kathryn Bell…"

Katie grabbed her essay and shoved it into her bag without looking at her grade—it probably wasn't very good.

"…If I didn't call your name please come forward."

Isabelle Snow shyly came forward and Katie narrowly missed walking right into her as she walked back to her desk, counting down seconds.

At last it was ten o'clock and Katie rushed out the class, only to run into someone. "Ow, sorry." Katie rubbed her forehead and dropped down to pick up her books.

He beat her to it. "Don't be sorry, I should really watch where I'm going."

Katie looked up as Blaine gave her a charming smile. She smiled back, but felt her heart skip a beat. Blaine smiled. "Kathryn, right?"

"Um, Katie." She felt a bit uncertain about where this was going and wondered how he knew her name.

"Well I feel really bad for just crashing right into you. Let me walk you to class." He smiled invitingly.

Katie smiled for lack of an appropriate reaction. "Oh you don't have to! I'm fine! Besides, Divination is across the castle." Normally Oliver walked her to Divination anyways. She tried to subtly look down the hall for Oliver.

"North tower, right?" Blaine started off down the hall and indicated she should follow.

Oliver was nowhere in sight. "Right." Katie followed cautiously, noting that at least the halls were crowded. She couldn't exactly abandon her books with him, seeing as she needed them. "I'm sorry, I don't think I've met you before."

"Oh, right!" Blaine rubbed his neck as if embarrassed. "I'm Blaine," He said, as if that settled it. Katie smiled, trying not to look apprehensive, and searched out of the corner of her eye for someone to talk to so she could get away from Blaine. "So, you play Quidditch, right?"

"Yes!" Katie said, perhaps overenthusiastically, glad that there was a logical reason he knew her name.

He nodded. "Cool, Kathryn."

"Katie." She said.

"Sorry?"

"You can call me Katie." She felt perhaps she shouldn't have said that, as they left the History wing to the staircases where less people were likely to be.

Blaine just smiled in a way that seemed genuinely nice. "Sorry about that."

"There you are Katie!" Oliver saw her from the intersection of hallways. He slipped his arm around her and smiled at Blaine. "Alright, Blaine?"

Blaine grinned at Oliver. "Great. Cool, Oliver?" Katie's eyes darted between the two of them, wondering about this curious exchange.

Oliver shrugged casually.

Blaine smiled apologetically to Katie and handed her books back. "Well, it looks like I should go." She felt a huge sigh of relief as she accepted them. "See you 'round Kathryn!"

"Katie!" She called after him.

"Didn't know you knew Blaine." Olive said conversationally, taking her books from her and kissing her cheek.

"I don't." Katie wrinkled her nose at the thought of him. "He kind of creeps me out."

Oliver shrugged. "He's alright for a Slytherin."

"Even Lee doesn't like him." She said, as if that settled it.

"Why not?"

Katie stared at the wall across from them as something suddenly clicked into place in her mind. "I don't know." She lied. "I guess there must be some kind of history. I don't like to deal with that kind of stuff."

Oliver smiled and they continued on towards Tralewney's attic. Katie shrugged his arm away.

Professor Binns never took attendance, or even glanced at his students, really—not that Angelina had cared to think about that when she ditched History of Magic.

She thought about visiting Alicia, but she didn't like hospitals.

She made out with a hot seventh year, forgot his name; did her Potions essay, didn't quite give a damn about the properties of vitalaric; yelled at Oliver when he tried to schedule an extra practice for that night, wanted to kick his ass when he continued bothering her; and contemplated blade therapy, but realized she was wearing white, so she settled for Roger Davies (the first hot guy that walked by her on her way back to the common room).

"Always thought you were hot." Davies muttered as he pushed her roughly onto his bed.

"Don't you all." Angelina rolled her eyes. He pulled off his shirt. She duly glanced at his abs, glazed over his biceps, quite unimpressed. She should have picked up Cedric instead.

She watched his eyes nearly pop out of his head at the model-worthy sight of her dark and perfect figure in red lace against white sheets. "Damn." He tried hard enough to be seductive and steamy but it was at best just a grayscale collection of moments.

He was out of breath and dizzy looking when she finally had enough and pulled her clothes back on.

She wished she could have said she felt hollow or empty, because that would have been better. She felt like her blood had drained out long ago and her veins were now running with mud and her body was standing up by the support of pebbled stones. Her chest might as well have been filled with dirt; it piled up to her throat and dissolved into a bitterly acidic taste in her mouth.

"What is it going to take?" She murmured.

She dug her fingernails into her arm and felt only the cold solidity of ice. When she swallowed all she could taste was that acrid bitterness coming back up. Her leaden feet walked her to her gray enclosure. She noticed now there was no door, even. Just four walls that all but materialized before her. Gray, stone walls.

Today they looked like mirrors.

She'd done it all before, watched herself with detached recognition.

She slammed her wrist against the wall, heard a crack, stared at the angles. Smashed her knee against stone, scraped skin, wanted to make sure it was bone breaking. Wasn't quite enough. Slit her fingernails along her wrist and watched the veins float to the surface, traced the tip along and watched her blood sketch ribbons across her skin. Drove that point in hard and stared as blood pooled at her feet, standing not in dirt or mud. Pulled it out to look at her reflection in the blade. Dirty, filthy, despicable.

She wished it had hurt more.

"What's it going to take?"

George leaned his chair back and rested his elbows on the desk behind him. He looked up at the ceiling, wondering if there was something—anything—he could do to brighten up the lecture.

The girl sitting in the desk behind him leaned forward, smiling in that self-complacent sort of way he hated. "Bored?" She said in a soft, low voice meant to be alluring.

George shrugged as if to say of course.

"Know what you mean." She said loftily. "It's hard to interest me." Her bright red lipstick was purposely distracting.

"I'm sure it is." He murmured.

She smirked slightly. "I think you could manage."

George laughed shortly. For someone who tried so hard to be complex she was quite transparent. "Wouldn't want to waste my time, Candace."

She looked slightly surprised he didn't call her Candy, the way she liked guys to. Never mind that her friends never called her that. Something about it sounding like a stripper name. "Don't think you could?" She teased, tilting her head so that upside down, he could see her smile from an attractive angle. Her bronze locks spilled down her shoulder.

He shrugged, not much persuaded by her honeyed tones. "Can't say I'd care to."

Candace smiled knowingly. It generally didn't take much when you looked like she did to make a guy care. "You'll come to it."

He raised his eyebrows in practiced surprise. "Sure about that?" Her self-assuredness was clearly sugar-spun, though he wasn't sure she knew that.

Candace glanced at the clock, averting her eyes in the perfect angle to show off her long eyelashes, liberally coated in mascara. "I've got the time."

"I haven't the inclination." The girl next to Candace suppressed a laugh. It wasn't everyday, or even heard of, that someone would so blatantly reject Candy Wilson. Candace glared at her. "Careful Candace, not your most attractive look."

"So I'm attractive." She smirked.

He gave her a bored look. "Do you need me to think so?"

"What?"

He fixed her with his amber eyes in such a way she stopped to study his eyes. "Would what I say change the way you look?"

Candace looked taken aback as she snapped herself out of her momentary reverie. "I suppose not." She said slowly.

He turned to look at McGonagall's demonstration of vanishing frogs—living creatures were supposedly hard to vanish.

"You know, George," Candace said softly but coyly.

He leaned his chair back and looked at her.

"You can call me Candy." She smiled as if this were quite a big honor to bestow.

"Do you want me to?"

She studied him with an appraising look, tilting her head just slightly so the light shimmered in her hair and off her red lipstick. His eyes were so beautiful, like liquid gold.

"No. You can all me Candace."

Outside the sky was clear and the sun was shining. Snow was falling lightly, one snowflake at a time. Angelina walked through the castle courtyard. There was the fountain where she used to make out with all her dates before seducing them. That was more fun, to at least pretend there was a relationship or an attraction. Now she just skipped straight to sleeping with them—as if that held any significance.

A class of first-years was having an Herbology lesson in the green houses. They didn't seem to like mandrakes very much. She smiled, remembering days before secret passages and the Marauder's Map when they used to sneak into the green house to plan their various schemes. Back when she was as much a troublemaker as Fred and George.

It was rumored that the castle garden grew shooting-star daisies. When she wanted to find them George had rolled his eyes and replied sarcastically that every month fairies came to visit too. It turned out shooting-star daisies did exist. She dragged George out into the garden past midnight one spring night and they found white daisies that seemed to glow in the night. When she picked them the petals plucked themselves off the flower and flew off into the sky like shooting stars.

Angelina grimaced as she felt a different kind of pain. She pressed the heel of her palm against her chest, half of her longed for someone to tear her heart out of her chest and the other half just wanted it to hurt more so she could remember it was there.

She yanked back her sleeve and examined her wrist.

Her arm looked mangled. Deep cuts criss-crossed her wrist, uneven gashes, not even straight lines. She turned the faucet on and stuck her arm under the stream of water, hissing in pain as the cuts started to sting. The water ran red into the white porcelain sink.

There were no scars, no trace of shame. Convenient.

"Why would you do this to yourself, Princess?"

She backed against the wall and finally, with nowhere to turn, faced him. "I didn't do anything wrong." She said in a brittle voice.

"So why did you hurt yourself?"

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"I don't understand." He searched her face and she could see in his eyes that he was trying so hard to understand, to imagine what happened so he could know why she would do this. But he could never fathom what had happened to her and she didn't ever want him to know. Finally he looked away and said in a small voice, "Did it hurt?"

Not nearly enough to be real pain.

She smoothed her sleeve back over her arm and turned around when she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Lee gave her a small smile and stood beside her. "Thought I'd get some fresh air." He murmured.

"Same."

"You feel okay?"

"Fine."

"You sure?"

"Lee, shouldn't you know better than to ask?" She said warily. She was never going to say anything more indicative than fine and quite honestly no one ever cared for details.

He shrugged. "You don't always have to be so strong."

She rolled her eyes. "I'd rather not rely on the strength of others. There's variable reliability in that."

"That's true for everyone."

"But I can blame myself. You can't effectively blame others."

Lee looked at her curiously. "Is that what all this has been about?"

"All this meaning…?"

"You changing."

She laughed. "You'll have to be more specific."

"You know what I mean."

She shrugged. "Take it for what you will."

"Ange, I just want to understand." He put his hand on her shoulder.

"I know." She turned to face him. "And I love you for trying, but I can't let you. You don't want to know the truth."

"What makes you think that?"

Angelina stared at the snowflakes falling onto the ground.

Lee studied her. "You don't really like any of this do you?"

She sighed, willing to make the pathetic excuse of not answering vague questions.

"What you are now?"

She turned back to the castle, brushing his hand away. "No. I don't. But it's my choice."

Katie pulled Oliver's playbook from his hands. "You've been sketching plays for an hour."

"And I think I'm onto something." He reached for the composition book.

"And I think you're obsessed." Katie held it behind her back. "Our next match isn't for a month. Take a break."

Oliver gave her a playful smile. "Am I going to have to take it from you?"

Katie stepped back from his desk with a smile. "Nope. Because I'm not giving it to you until tomorrow."

"Come on, Katie." Oliver spun his chair around.

"Come on, Oliver." Katie smiled teasingly. "You know that you need a break. I mean you spent the last few hours working out and sketching plays. It's too much."

"I'm the captain of Quidditch. I need to be on top of things." Oliver said, slightly annoyed.

Katie leaned against the wall, the playbook still behind her back. "How are you feeling, Oliver?" She said somewhat accusingly.

"What?"

"How are you feeling?" There was an edge to her voice.

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

Oliver gave her a questioning look. "Is that not okay?"

"You're just fine?"

Oliver threw his arms up. "I'm great, okay? I feel great."

"Because you just ran a marathon around the Quidditch pitch and had a play-sketching frenzy."

Oliver clenched his jaw, seeing where this was going. "I'm fine."

"Because you had bane." It was more of a statement than a question.

Oliver was silent for a moment, seeing where this was going. "I'm trying, Katie." His voice was empty.

"Because you wanted to be better at Quidditch."

Oliver exhaled tiredly and ran his fingers through his hair. "Katie,"

"And bane makes you do and feel things that you normally don't."

"Yes, but I'm trying. I am."

Katie folded her arms across her chest, pinning the playbook to the wall with her back. "Are you?" She said softly.

Oliver slowly looked up at her with an expression of mixed hurt and anger. "Of course I am." He felt betrayed. "How can you say that I'm not?" He fixed her with such an intense expression that Katie shivered, but she stood her ground.

"Because you love Quidditch so much." Her voice shook slightly. Her eyes widened as he stood up slowly. A chill ran down her spine at the cold anger burning in his eyes.

"Just give me the playbook." He said in a low voice.

Katie shook her head adamantly. "The more you care about Quidditch the less you'll fight it."

"Katie, give it to me." His voice had an edge to it.

"You need to stop."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine, you're addicted to bane and you're getting it from people like Blaine."

"That's not your concern." His voice was hollow and his eyes were set in stone.

"People like Blaine are dangerous, why do you think they have bane?"

"Katie," His voice was slow but threatening. He started advancing across the room. His strength radiated across the room. "Give it to me."

She felt the wall pushing against her shoulder blades. She backed into the wall harder as he came closer. "No, Oliver, I won't."

"Damnit Katie!" He was right in front of her. They were face to face.

"Oliver, this is for you, I can't let you—"

"GIVE IT TO ME DAMNIT!"

She screamed as he struck her, his strength overwhelming as she crumpled against the bookcase and the playbook landed on the floor beside her.

Angelina took a shortcut to Charms, through the abandoned fourth floor corridor. There were only so many classes you dared miss before facing the wrath of Professor McGonagall, and Angelina wasn't looking for that kind of trouble.

"In a hurry, aren't you, babe?"

Angelina pulled out her wand and whirled around.

"Not quite." He whispered. She felt his breath on her neck; he was standing right behind her, close enough that their bodies touched and she knew that he would sense her movements.

Angelina turned her head back so she could face him. Their lips almost touched. "I have to give you credit, Blaine Bear. I didn't think you'd be back so soon."

Blaine chuckled. "I can't stay away, babe."

Angelina smiled seductively. "No, you can't."

Blaine smiled coldly and tilted her chin so she was looking right into his eyes. "Something about you." In one deft movement he had her buttoned coat on the floor.

Angelina slipped her hand around his neck and kissed him. Sometimes that's all it took. He leaned his body into hers and tugged at her shirt. She pointed her wand at him.

"Nice try, babe." He grinned and twisted her wrist in one quick movement. A loud crack echoed in the corridor as her wand clattered to the floor. He twisted her around and shoved her against the wall. Digging his elbow into her back, he slowly pushed her body against the stone corridor, snapping her ribs one at a time. "But you're easier than Ally was."

"How dare you bring Alicia into this." Angelina hissed at him.

Blaine shugged and twisted her arms behind him until they popped out of their sockets. "Just like this."

"You know there's only so many things that we can do to each other." Angelina said through clenched teeth.

"And I haven't run out yet." He grabbed her wrist roughly and jabbed a large syringe full of green liquid into her vein so that the needle was almost parallel to her vein and the more she struggled, the more she ripped open her own veins. She could feel her blood vessels burning as the acidic feeling of vitalaric singed its way through her body. At this volume it was lethal; vitalaric kept you awake by draining your strength. When all of the liquid had been drained, he roughly tore the needle from her wrist, ripping open her vein along her wrist and watching the blood drip down onto the floor. "I want you to enjoy every moment of this." He smiled sickly. "Feel it?" Blaine turned her over roughly so she was facing him.

She was all angles. Her shoulders popped out, ribs poking at her skin, spine arched. "You don't really excite feelings other than disgust."

He grinned. "Well I better change that, huh?" He picked up her wand.

"You can try." He would anyways.

He tossed her wand in the air and caught it in his hand. "I'll take that as a challenge," He stepped in until their bodies touched. When she breathed she could feel her broken rib cage collapsing in as it hit the resistance of his body. He grinned and leaned forward so that he was crushing her body beneath hers. When she tried to breath she could feel fragmented bone tearing through flesh. She had just about reached her threshold of bearable pain.

"Take it for what you will." Angelina rasped, unable to breathe. Blaine pressed his cold fingers against her throat and traced down to her fine collarbones. He hooked two fingers under her collarbone and snapped it with a hard tug. She didn't have the breath to react.

His breath was hot on her neck. "Alright." He stepped back and examined her. His eyes seemed to pierce with their stare. It amazed him she was still standing, though her body was lilting to one side and leaning heavily into the wall of the corridor. Her eyes burned with hatred, giving her pretty features a fierce coldness. "Shame to break something so beautiful." His voice was cold and smooth, like stone. "But you know Ally will do. And there's the other one… what's her name?" He tossed her wand in the air again and snapped his fingers before he caught it in his hand again. "Kathryn. That's right."

"Don't touch her." Angelina said venomously.

Blaine smiled. "For now, babe, you're all I want." He flicked her wand and a large stone from the opposite wall flung itself towards her.

Her Chaser reflexes kicked in and she threw her body to the side, narrowly missing it, but finally cried out as the motions jerked her broken body. "Well aren't I lucky?" She said through clenched teeth.

Blaine winked as he flicked his wand again.

Angelina twisted her body to avoid getting hit in the shoulder and doubled over, clutching her side.

Blaine grinned. "What's the matter babe, is it starting to hurt?"

Angelina managed a bitter smile. "You don't know how to really hurt someone, do you?" She flinched as he sent the next stone flying, but it missed her by several inches. She didn't think she would have been able to dodge it anyways, the pain was starting to be paralyzing.

"I don't know babe, you tell me." Blaine flicked her wand.

She flung her body to the side to avoid being hit, and this crumpled against the wall.

"So tell me, how do I really hurt someone?" He said mockingly. With another flourish of the wand a stone flung itself right at her and this time hit its target with a sickening crash and scream. Blaine shook his head, disappointed. "You're losing it, babe. Even Ally lasted longer."

"Stop calling her Ally." Angelina tried to push the stone off of her but even if she'd moved past the pain her shoulder was crumpled at an angle.

"How is Ally? I haven't seen her around lately." Blaine smiled as another stone landed on her shoulder, eliciting another cry.

"She's fine actually."

"Nice to hear." He casually flicked his wand a few more times and the stones landed in rapid succession. Blaine walked up to her and scrutinized her mangled figure. Everything except her face was broken. She didn't say anything but her expression was contorted with pain and in her mind she was screaming at herself not to cry. The silence was frightening. "What's the matter, babe?" He grinned maliciously. "I didn't hurt you now, did I?"

"But you'll keep trying, won't you?" She managed to say, bitterness lacing every word.

He chuckled and bent down. She bit him when he tried to touch her face. "I guess I'll have to try harder." He tapped her wand against the stone floor. "We've got all this time…" She recoiled at the thought of all the vitalaric burning through her veins. She'd be awake for weeks, even if he stopped. "So while I think about this, why don't you just stand back?" With a flourish of her wand Angelina was magically pinned to the wall. Another swish and flick and the stones on the floor rose and hurled themselves at her. "Affinitio." He said lazily, smiling complacently as the stones continued to pick themselves off the floor and fly towards her.

"Fuck you." She managed to say in between screams.

"Some other time, babe." Blaine leaned back and watched her. "Let me know when it starts to hurt."

Oliver dropped to his knees. "Katie, I'm sorry. I don't—I can't—I'm sorry," He reached out to help her but she flinched, and cried out as the movement jerked her shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" Katie snapped.

"I—I don't… I didn't mean to—I don't know how it happened." Oliver's eyes were darting back and forth at a dizzying pace. "It must have been the bane. I would never hurt you Katie. I was angry but I… I wouldn't do that, Katie, please, I'm sorry."

Katie clutched her shoulder and winced as she tried to sit up.

"Let me take you to the hospital wing." Oliver looked completely torn apart by sudden guilt.

"I'll take myself." She tried to stand up. Pain seared through her shoulder.

"Katie I'm so sorry." Oliver's eyes were turning red. He was starting to seem normal again.

"Leave me alone." There were tears in her eyes as she finally pulled herself up. "I don't want to hear it."

"I don't know what came over me. It's just… I lost control. Sometimes it happens…from bane and I know that's not an excuse I just… I'm so sorry." Besides the redundancy of his apology, he did look genuinely apologetic.

At the moment, the pain in her shoulder was holding her paralyzed, so she indulged him in a moment of considering his apology. She did remember reading something about bane causing rage and impulsiveness.

The door to the dorm flew open.

"What's going on?" Damon asked as Percy looked around the room, taking in the scene.

"Katie Bell, what are you doing in the boys' dormitory?" Percy demanded. He frowned when he noticed the pain in her face. "You're hurt." He crossed the room to her and examined her shoulder. "What happened?"

Katie glanced over at Oliver and wiped her sleeve across her eyes. "I tripped and fell against the book case."

Like it? Hate it? I admit this is not that great of a chapter and you sort of hate everyone.