Hey guys!

Golly gee wiz, it's been forever! This chapter took a lot of editing. There were four whole other characters that I almost introduced, and about a million side stories, before I decided this had to be just about Aria, and her getting through things. So this is the 6,000 words shorter version. Maybe I'll tell the other story some other day.

I hope you enjoy it. After this, we have about two chapters left, according to my calculations. Four at the most. Aria's voice is kind of dimming for me. She's figuring herself out and she's almost done with the journey I set out to tell. It's a kind of scary feeling.

Read, and have fun!

Disclaimer: I'm the one into crazy people. Not J.K.R.

Aria's POV:

I had burned myself out. I had forced enough magic out of me, without a wand, to break handcuffs and set a house on fire. My body had become the funnel my wand usually acted as. My body was done.

I woke for seconds before my body brought me back under. I caught snippets; a whirling blue eye, black cloaks streaked with ruby red, smoke staining the sky. Later, it was the bland and sterile walls of a hospital, or a mental institution. Once, I woke to a wand pointed at me. I panicked. It was my mother, come back to torture me into obedience. I started screaming, my body contorting, dreading the pain yet to come.

Hands groped at me and I screeched louder and flung myself onto the floor. I had to get away, had to leave. I started scrambling across the floor. Escape. Loud voices called after me, but I ignored them. They were Death Eaters, had to be. I had to run, had to-

I blanked out again.

I drifted. I dreamed.

My world spun together. Reality was a nightmare, something to be shied away from an avoided. I lived in dreams, in imaginings.

In my dreams, I was a baby polar bear, sheltered from the world by my fluffy mama bear, who adored me and would never leave me alone.

Sometimes, I was conscious enough to realize I was descending into insanity. I disregarded this. What did it matter? I was a polar bear. I was safe. I was warm. I was happy.

Sometimes, I saw peoples' faces in my head. I looked away, refused to name them. Why hadn't they saved me? Didn't they love me?

Occasionally, I woke and saw things. The spinning-eye man hung around. A young looking blonde man, no, boy, stared at me. My hands were restrained once again and I writhed in my bonds. I stood in a hall with no idea of how I'd gotten there.

I was a baby eagle, in a nest high off the ground. I was the only one in the nest, so my mother loved me all the more. But she was gone most of the time, hunting, and I was lonely.

I began to grow more aware of myself. My mind moved sluggishly still, but I started to think. I could name the faces that floated in front of my closed eyes and noticed the pain in my body. I was awake for longer, but I shut my eyes and refused to acknowledge the real world. I was a baby eagle. I was safe and warm.

Who needed reality? My 'friends' didn't care. My kidnapping had made that much clear. After all, my mum had said that Lily had wanted my face shredded to pieces. Last time I checked, that wasn't friendship.

I was a baby lion cub, living on the savannah. I was the only cub of the pride leader and my mother protected me fiercely. She taught me to hunt, locate water and a lead a pride. She was not loving , but she taught me well.

But then I grew up and fell in love with a male from another pride. My mother grew upset and she clawed my face. I howled in pain.

And I woke up.

I was lying in a hospital bed. The sheets were white and rough and I kicked them off sluggishly.

I was wearing an ill-fitting hospital gown in a pasty green. The straps on my wrists and ankles were gone. I shifted and felt a shooting pain in my chest.

"It's your ribs," a young man's voice stated. I turned my head to look at him. The man was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. His sandy blonde hair flopped over his brow He looked no more than eighteen, but he wore a name plate identifying him as Doctor Taylor Ibsen. He had to be twenty-five. Bizarre.

He turned around to pick something up and I scanned him instinctively. Nice ass.

He shuffled over to my bedside. "Here's some medicine for the pain."

"You're my doctor?" I asked skeptically. My voice was rough and husky. How long had it been since I had spoken?

He blushed. I knew his type. The shy, nerdy boy that hid in the back of the room and had never spoken to an attractive woman in his life. Not that I would qualify as attractive at the moment. "Yes, well, not medically. I'm your psychologist."

"Psychologist?" I let the question hang.

He sat beside me carefully. "Do you remember what happened?"

I wet my lips. "I remember running away. I don't know how I got here."

He ruffled his hair. I though instinctively of James and flinched. "The Aurors found you because of the fire. They brought you here to St. Mungos. You've been here for two weeks."

"Oh." My brain felt all fuzzy. "What have I...?"

Doctor Taylor looked towards the door. "You've been sleeping and healing mostly."

I looked at him dead on. "Liar. I've been acting crazy, haven't I?" He hesitated and I rolled my eyes. "Don't pad things, Doc. I can deal."

"Can you?" He tilted his head to observe me. "I rather thought you'd had to deal with enough recently."

I just stared at him. "Listen Doc, DT, whatever your name is... I appreciate the thought. But at this point, I rather have honesty. I'm sick of being lied to and played with and deceived."

He blinked. "I understand, Miss Colette, but I think it would be rather inadvisable to discuss your status when you've finally awoken. Perhaps you would like to do, uh, something else first?"

I groaned. "Let me guess. This is your first big case out of the university. Normally, you're stuck listening to teenagers whine about their sex lives, even though you graduated first in your class. You signed up with St. Mungos because you wanted to help people in need, but in reality, you're crap at relating to people. Am I right?" He was staring at me. "And it's Aria."

He drew himself up. "I am the best psychologist in this hospital."

A smile flickered over my lips. He was fun to play with. "You didn't answer my question."

"I didn't need to. You're quite intuitive."

I smirked. "Try telling my friends that."

He smiled a little. "Let me amend that: you're quite intuitive when you actually bother to pay attention. Which doesn't happen often because you tend to be quite busy with your own private issues."

That threw me off a little. He wasn't supposed to see me as well as I saw him. I swallowed. "You mean I'm self-absorbed."

He shrugged. "I think you often have a variety of semi-complex things going on in your life. You have to devote your attention to these things first, and the rest of the world second."

I ducked my head. "Isn't this a rather heavy conversation for the first five minutes I'm awake after two weeks?"

His professional and clear-seeing eyes deserted him and he shifted back to the abashed school boy. "Sorry. Um... do you need anything?"

I took a deep breath. "Could I have a full length mirror?"

His head jerked up. "Why would you want that?"

I didn't bother responding. Simply lifted my arm for him to see. It was stick thin, practically skeletal, and ringed in layers of smooth, white, rope-like scars. "It's like this all over, isn't it?"

I watched his adam's apple bob in his throat. Silently, he waved his wand and the air shimmered and waved as it became reflective in front of me. And I could see myself.

My hair was chopped unevenly, hovering around earlobe length, and matted from weeks writhing in my tiny hospital bed. I was smaller, bony now, half starved because I'd not been fed, or, if I had, I'd puked it back up. And worst of all, running over my skin, in various degrees of thickness, were the long, white scars. I moved one of my hands to touch the scar on the back of my neck that I'd had since forever. It was the exact duplicate of a hundred more scars all over my body.

I'll be the first to admit that vanity is a weak point for me. No matter what else I was, I'd always been 'The Pretty One'. I knew at least part of my popularity was based on my face. It was something I'd always relied on, something I took comfort in.

I suppose, logically, I was still pretty. But not really and truly. With my hair cropped, my body all bones, and the scars all over, I looked like exactly what I was. An abandoned and abused child. The very last shield I hid behind had been torn apart.

I heard a high keening sound echo through the room. As I burst into heaving tears, I realized it was me.

The Doctor tried to calm me, his hands awkward on my back. But I shoved him off and heard him call for assistance. The nurses' hands groped at me, tried to muffle my cries, put a stopper on my tears. I twisted and writhed in their grip, sobbing on. If I wasn't pretty, what was I?

I didn't see Doctor Taylor (who by this point was DT to me) again for a week. I was glad.

My days fell into a mind-numbing pattern. I rarely left my room, only for bathroom breaks exactly at eight in the morning, one in the afternoon and nine at night. Meals were served like clockwork. A healer visited me twice a day, at exactly the same time. I noticed they didn't let me near mirrors again.

Somehow, they got a hold of my school trunks. I no longer had to dress in hospital gowns. I rejected most of my old clothing, though. It showed too much skin.

I started doing small amounts of exercise as I healed. They had a yoga instructor come in occasionally and help me practice. I started gaining back some of my weight in muscle.

I pieced together the story of my rescue. I'd been with my mother for somewhere around three weeks. Then my magic had gone out of control and busted me out, while setting the house on fire. I'd run about two miles south, quite a feat for someone as physically trashed as I was. The Aurors had seen the smoke from the fire and come to rescue me, led by Moody, the Head of the Auror department. He was the man with the spinning blue eye. Apparently he'd carried me to St. Mungos personally. He checked in on me daily, but I never saw him. I'd been out in crazy-land for two weeks. And now I was back, now that my brain could supposedly handle what had happened to me. My mother had never been found. She was presumed dead.

It was boring in my cell-like bedroom. I drew for hours a day, awful pictures that even I didn't understand. And some that were far too understandable. A recurring theme emerged. A small girl draped in black, left, abandoned, her hands tied together by a blood red string and a disembodied hand clenched around her neck. The same small girl, shackled to a wall, a slit across her throat. Or carving out her own eye with a small, jagged knife.

The time for my first official counseling session came. Which meant our routine was broken so I could meet with DT at one.

I was ushered into a blank, clean room. DT sat uncomfortably in a large armchair in the middle of the far wall. There was a plush leather couch directly across from him.

"Welcome Aria," he mumbled, occupied with his papers. I curled up on the couch, body squeezed into a small ball, my oversized sweats masking the shape of my body. I was a blob of grey, with a tuft of sullied gold on top. My fingers picked anxiously at the creamy leather.

"I want to get out of here."

DT blinked owlishly at me. His blond hair was ruffled and out of order, like he'd just woken up. "Excuse me?"

I crossed my arms and closed my eyes. "I don't want to stay at this hospital any longer. I want to go home."

"To Hogwarts?"

I shook my head and the short strands of my hair whipped my face. "No. I want to go back to my mansion." I opened my eyes to glare at him. "In my understanding, since my mother has been deemed dead, and she technically owned all of our possessions in Europe, I've inherited everything. Correct?"

DT inclined his head. "This is true. But Aria..." He leaned forward. "Why would you not want to go to Hogwarts?"

I pursed my lips. I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to get me with some psycho-mumbo-jumbo. "I don't have to talk to you. I want out."

His lips turned down at the corners. "I'm afraid you are in no mental state to be allowed out of this hospital, Aria. Until we can talk through the experiences you've had and help you to process them, I can't-"

"I won't stay!" My hands rose to tug at my hair, as if I could pull it back to it's former length. "I can't! I can't! I want out!" My shrieks turned into howling sobs and I was dragged out of the counseling room without further ado.

For the next session, I dressed to bug DT, put him off of his game. I put on a dusky red bustier from my clubbing days and a tiny, tight-fitting jean skirt. Six inch red heels completed the look. In other words, I looked like a slut and not a classy one. A cheap, totally-smashed slut. I smirked as I lowered myself into the couch opposite DT. The fight was on.

"Long time, no see, DT." I wasn't going for convincing or subtle. I was going for desperate and ready-to-throw-myself-on-just-about-anyone.

"Hello, Aria." His eyes avoided my body. He shuffled some papers in front of him. "Now, I want to ease into this. I'd like to talk about your hobbies-"

"Socializing, drawing, drinking, sleeping with older men."

"-your goals-"

"Owning a jewelry store, fucking all the men in England."

"-and your perceptions of yourself-"

"I'm sorry, that is way too big a word for my limited vocabulary. I stopped paying attention to school in my fifth year and instead gave blow jobs to the guys in my classes under the tables."

"Aria!"

DT looked like he was about to rip his hair out. I did my best 'what-me?' smile.

He took several deep breaths, then spoke. "I understand that this is difficult for you and that you're used to using your sexuality as a method of self-defense. But in order to help you, I need you to cooperate."

The words tumbled out of my mouth before I even thought about them. "Wow, I didn't realize you were into submission DT. I'm more of a rough and gritty girl myself."

And there was silence.

He gaped at me. "Did you just... proposition me?" His voice squeaked. Had to be a virgin.

I raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you've never been flirted with before."

"Of course I have!" He bridled with indignation. "I... No. I'm not letting you distract me." He ruffled his hair, a nervous habit. "Perhaps we should discuss why and when you began utilizing your sexuality as a way of disguising yourself."

I picked at the fake nails I'd put on for the occasion. "I've no idea what you're going on about."

He threw his papers on the floor. "Maybe I should just list what I already know about you. You're seventeen, as of October 11. As a child, you were physically and emotionally abused by your mother, as your father looked on. At a very young age, you began using physical affection as a way of counter-acting this, as is shown in the touchy-feely-ness in all of your friendships and particularly in your relationship with Narcissa, with whom you are incredibly close. It's very difficult for you to put your trust in people, because you were raised in an environment that encourages self-sufficiency and deception. Only recently have you begun opening up, which has coincided with your friend committing suicide and yourself being kidnapped and tortured. Thus, you've put your walls bak up and you have no intention of letting me in. But in order for you to recover, in order for you to be released, you need to let me in, Aria."

I stared at him, my acting gone. "How'd you know all that about me?"

He scuffed his foot on the ground. "Some is inferred. The rest... I spoke to your friends and teachers."

That caught my attention. "You snooped into my life!"

DT had the sense to look ashamed. "It was essential... to your treatment..." His words died out as I glared.

"You had no right!" I hissed, my hands balling into fists.

"I had every right. I'm supposed to help you, Aria, and I can't do that unless you either talk to me, or I get that information from other sources. When it became clear exactly how closed off you were, I decided to get your back round from your friends, hoping it would give me another insight on you besides my own." He stood up and came to sit beside me on the sofa. I was surprised the heat of my anger wasn't burning him up already. His hand extended and caught one of my own. "They are very worried about you, you know. They haven't forgotten you at all. In fact, if you had set that fire a few hours later, they would've been responsible for your rescue."

"What?" I reeled back in shock, the surprise disabling my anger.

"They worked together and ended up figuring out where you were. They're very concerned."

I searched his eyes for the classic signs of lying, but his gaze was wide and truthful. I could feel my hand shaking in his.

And then I was collapsing, sobbing, clinging to him. I didn't know him at all, but for two seconds, he had reminded me of Sirius, who could see me so clearly. Even if the information was second hand, I could feel Sirius speaking through him to me. I could see him in the black of my closed eyelids. I had to get better. I had to get better for him.

From then on, Sirius was my ghost. My own little haunting, pushing me to get better. When DT asked a hard question, when I wanted to clam up, I envisioned him next to me, nudging me with his elbow. Saying 'Come on, Aria. You can do this. You're stronger than your fear'. And with him, I was.

Of course, DT refused to allow me any contact with the outside world. He said that I had to be treated without relying on anyone. I needed to stand on my own, without Cissy or Sirius or James. I had to keep it together without them, so that I could see them.

Sometimes, he dropped tidbits, though.

"The Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match is in a month, you know. Sirius still hasn't replaced you. Everyone is admonishing him for being sentimental, but he says they play with you or not at all." DT calmly announced at the beginning of our session.

My head jerked up from the drawings I'd brought to show him. (Apparently art was a good way of analyzing my mental state or something. So I'd drawn a bunch of rainbows and bunnies to show him. See where he got with that). "Oh?" I asked, a lump in my throat. "That's... sweet of him."

DT gave a small smile. "You really do care about him."

"Yes," I answered tersely, shifting in my chair. So sue me. I still wasn't exactly comfortable with the fact that I was in love with Sirius freaking Black. I mean... we hadn't had most uncomplicated relationship.

"So!" DT set aside his papers. "I know we've been delving into what has happened this last year in your school life and your past relationships with Narcissa and Nyx, but now I'd like to shift gears and talk more about how you were these past couple of years. You've made several veiled references to what happened after you dated Sirius in your 5th year, but I'd like a little bit of clarification."

"And this will help my therapy how?" I asked skeptically. Sometimes I felt more like a case study than a patient receiving counseling.

"It is important for us to delve into all aspects of your mind before we can have the full picture and work on restoring your ability to function without a hoard of nurses ready to knock you out at a moments notice." DT folded his hands together, eyes lowered.

There were still so many times I did need my caretakers. Times when I would see my face and not be able to cope with the reality of it, times when my mother's words would slither into my ear and I could not struggle away. Even speaking to DT would do it... if we pushed to hard at my memories of imprisonment in that two-story house, my body would quake and tears would run down my face without my even noticing. I wasn't ready to be let out. Not yet.

I cleared my throat. "I fell in with the wrong crowd, I suppose you could say. I... was looking for a place I could lose myself without anyone remembering. It was so hard, keeping up my facade, but I couldn't let go, not in front of everyone. So, I found clubs. Bad clubs. And I met people that were more than willing to supply me with all sorts of methods of respite from the madness... I did a lot of drugs. I drank a lot. Slept around a lot, mostly with people much older than me. Cissy saw a little of it, but I was the only one that went really bad. I only had one rule, which was to never sleep with the same person twice. Because then they remember you, you see, and I wanted to be anonymous. That's how I got away with it, without anyone finding out." I traced my inner arm absentmindedly. "Except for Lucius. I think he guessed."

"Lucius..." DT tapped his quill on the armrest of his chair. "Your cousin. You seem to have a rather confusing relationship. What exactly does this stem from?"

I pulled away instinctively. "Why? Don't tell me you think that all my emotional issues are coming from the abrupt change in my cousin when I was a small child? Or perhaps that Lucius's physical treatment of me did what my own mother's could not and caused me to begin acting out sexually or some such nonsense?"

He sighed. "Aria, you're lashing out. Obviously, Lucius holds some meaning to you. Tell me."

I swallowed once. And again. And the tears came without warning, bursting out. I wiped them away. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

His eyes glinted with interest. "You can talk to me, Aria."

I shook my head. My hair was getting longer. "I don't want to."

"Aria..."

I wrapped a hand in my hair. Pulled. "He's my cousin, you know? Your cousin isn't supposed to want you like that."

DT couldn't hide his look of shock. "Aria, did Lucius-"

"Rape me?" I let out a half-hysterical laugh. "No, Merlin, no. We were engaged, when we were kids." His expression was priceless. "It's not very well known. Only Lucius, Cissy and I remember it now... and his dad, I guess. My uncle. My mom and my uncle formed it to keep the blood pure... but I think it was always 'cause they were a little in love with each other. They've always had some creepy bond... I don't know. I don't know. But Lucius and I were raised to be like that with each other, not so much when we were really young, but older. They always wanted me to hold his hand, or sit on his lap. They made me kiss him under the mistletoe once too. And Merlin, as much as I've wanted to erase that from my mind, I can't! Especially when he still wants me like that, because I'm the only thing he can't have. He's obsessed with the fact he can have anything but me. And I love him to death, because he's my cousin and he was my friend, and it hurts me, every time I have to look at him and see what he's become. He could be so much better! So much... he had so much potential... But all that's gone and he's just a pawn now, a greedy, selfish pawn. He's not my Lucius anymore, not the one that I looked up to and loved as a child. He's my only chain, the only thing that will never let me go. No matter how much I run from their world, his world, he's always their to remind me it's my world too. I'll never get away and sometimes I think I don't want to, because it would be so much easier to stay. It hurt less, because you didn't let things hurt. I just don't want to hurt anymore."

DT sat silent for a minute or two, as the tears rolled down my face. Then he handed me a tissue. "Just remember Aria, living is hurting. You can try to hide and you can try to stop it, but in the end, pain is a reminder that we are alive. Without it... what's the point?"

"Your mother. When did the beating start?"

"She always slapped me, even when I was very young. The harsher stuff didn't start until I was six, I think. I don't know. It seems constant to me."

"How did you cope with that?"

"I tried to be perfect."

"I meant, directly after she abused you."

"Cissy, at first. Clubbing, when I was older. Drugs. Alcohol."

"You were able to sneak out?"

"Yes. You doubt me, DT? 'Cause I'm capable of all sorts of th-"

"Avoiding, Aria. How did Narcissa help you?"

"I don't know. She's Cissy."

"That's not an answer."

"What exactly do you want?"

"Specific examples."

"Ummm... I would go to her, mostly in the evenings after, and she'd put me into her PJs and brush my hair and sing me to sleep in her bed. It was nice."

"Almost as if she was taking care of you as your mother should?"

"However you want to see it. You're the psychologist."

"Was Narcissa ever physically abused?"

"If I answer yes, will you go after her parents?"

"Would that be a bad thing?"

"Now? Yes."

"I'll rephrase. Did you ever assist Narcissa in the manner she assisted you."

"Cissy never needs help from anyone. Even me. She's... completely independent."

"Hmm..."

"You better not be insinuating that I was a bad friend."

"I wasn't."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you wish."

"Alright. I believe that was an innuendo."

"How was that innuendo?"

"I don't know. It just was."

"That's not logical."

"Your face isn't logical."

"Lashing out, Aria."

"Fuck lashing out."

"I think this session is done for today."

"Aria... what happened with your mother in that house?"

"She tortured me."

"Aria... to get you through this we need to re-live it."

"I don't want to fucking re-live it, you asshole! Once was enough!"

"Nurses!"

"Are you ready to discuss this rationally now?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You have to."

"I don't want to."

"You can't avoid it forever."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"Avoiding things and locking feelings away is part of what caused your emotional instability at this point."

"Damn, and I thought being tortured might of caused it! Gee, I guess I was wrong!"

"Sarcasm is yet another defense mechanism, Aria."

"DT, shut the fuck up."

"You tend to use language when I am right and you don't want me to be."

"I use language all the time, DT. It's called speaking."

"That wasn't what I meant, and you know it."

"When can I leave this place?"

"Not until we discuss your mother."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"It's a stalemate, I guess."

"Fuck stalemate."

"I don't know who my dad is. As a person. He wasn't around."

"Did he seem to care for your mother?"

"I thought so. I was just a child, though. I'd never seen real love. It could've all been an act."

"Did you love your mother?"

"Of course I did. It's a child's duty to love their parents and obey them."

"You're spitting out doctrine."

"You noticed?"

"Sarcasm."

"This might surprise you, but I actually know when I'm being sarcastic."

"Which is something we are avoiding using in these meetings, aren't we?"

"Yes, DT."

"Rolling your eyes is unnecessary."

"Treating me like a six-year-old is unnecessary too."

"Not when you currently have the emotional stability of one."

"That was a low blow."

"Can we get back on topic?"

"Fine."

"Would you say you still love your mother?"

"No. I hate her."

"Really."

"Yes. No one should do that to someone else. She had to right... she fucked me up for life. If I end up some horribly messed up person, it's all thanks to her, you know?"

"Do you believe you are horribly messed up?"

"I'm in fucking therapy. What do you think?"

"Aria, no one can mess someone up completely. You always retain the right to fix yourself back up. Which is why you here."

"That's not comforting DT."

"Are you sure you don't care for her at all?"

"Of course I care for her. I care if she's dead."

"I don't believe you're being honest."

"And I don't believe that you are honestly wearing that shirt. That is the geekiest thing I've ever seen. Someone's going to attempt to rough you up and steal your lunch money, you know?"

"Thank you for the insight, Aria."

"Aria, we've been talking about this for days. You need to give me the truth about what happened in that house." DT sighed. It was true. We were, quite literally, at a stalemate. He wouldn't let up on his questions, and I wouldn't answer them.

"Somehow, re-living torture doesn't sound all that appealing to me," I grumbled. It was my sixth week here, including the two I'd been asleep. It was March already. I wanted out.

"It's necessary." Neither of us were paying too much attention to the argument. We'd been saying the exact same words on and off for the past couple of hours.

DT glanced at his watch. "Listen, time is almost up. But, Aria, I need you to speak about it."

"I can't." A pleading note entered my voice. I couldn't talk about it. I just couldn't.

DT sighed again, whole body exhausted. "Well, if you can't talk, why not draw it? Or write about it. You could write it up. It would be equally therapeutic."

I didn't bother responding, simply stood.

"I won't be back again for a few days. Think on it." DT called after me.

My room was bleak and boring. I laid down on my bed. Picked up a quill and a piece of parchment. Started sketching.

It was like re-living it. As I drew, I felt like I was there again. I smudged out my own face, because I didn't want to see myself there. I distanced myself from the drawings... or tried to. But that wasn't the point. The point was to live it again and get through it. Live it again and be freed. I worked towards freedom as I drew every agonizing sketch. As I filled in my own face, saw myself there. Remembered how each scar came to be. Remembered not wanting to be anymore. Remembered finding something, something I knew I could hold onto, no matter what. It was so true and so real, nothing could tear it from me. I kept that in mind as I drew.

I refused to leave my room, or eat. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it all in one stroke. I couldn't bear to come back to real life and then have to return to my nightmares.

The room became covered with paper. The nurses whispered behind my back.

I drew.

I finished on the third day, dizzy and light-headed. I ate. I stared at the pictures papering my floor. I scooped them up and hid them under my bed.

The pictures were not enough. They had feeling, yes, plenty of that, but they could not show thoughts. They needed words. They needed...

I picked up paper and pen again. And began writing, from the real beginning of my life.

'Heels or flats? It's a hard question...'

I should've been concerned when I found it very easy to escape from my nurses' care. It didn't speak well for St. Mungo's security. But it worked out for me, so I was more than happy to take advantage.

DT still wasn't back, and I was done. I'd written up the whole story of my seventh year, or at least what had happened thus far. And I'd drawn illustrations to go along with it. It had taken an absurdly short amount of time, but I was done. I was ready to talk. And I needed DT, damn it.

I hadn't been out of the hospital at all. Walking out onto the busy street was a bit of shock.

There were so many people.

I shrank against the building. It wasn't safe. The last time I'd been out alone in a place like this, I had been-

Breathe Aria.

"They're just Muggles, it's okay," I murmured to myself as I shakily moved away from the wall and towards the street. Luckily, I was used to be out in Muggle London, thanks to my clubbing days. I held out a timid hand for a taxi, clutching a wrinkled piece of paper in my other palm. DT's business card, which gave his address in case any of his patients needed emergency counseling. He lived just outside Diagon Alley.

A car pulled over, and an older man leaned out. "Where do you want to go, darling?"

"1749 Clemmings Street, please," I answered, voice trembling as I climbed into the back seat of the taxi. I pulled my seat belt on and curled up in a ball.

He glanced in his mirror to look back at me. "You okay, darling?"

"Yes." I turned to look out the window. "Just in a hurry."

He hit the gas pedal and we jerked into motion.

I kept thinking that I saw people as we drove through the city. I'd catch a glimpse of ember hair and I'd think it was Lily, and anyone tall and stately was McGonagall. I chewed at my lip.

What would happen when I returned? Would it be weird? I'd been kidnapped and tortured, after all. What if... what if nothing was ever the same? What if they avoided me with their eyes and their words became fake and meaningless?

The taxi pulled to a stop. "Here you are, darling? Sixteen pounds, please."

I slid the money out of my pocket and stuck it in his hand, nimbly hopping out. "Thank you."

"No problem." He sped off.

I scanned the street. I was right in front of DT's, but I knew I wasn't ready quite yet. Before talking to him, I had to find a way to deal with my insecurities. The buildings around were all small, industrial apartments. Except...

I edged to the right. There was a tattoo and piercing parlor just a few buildings down. A wicked grin lit up my face and I headed straight towards it.

I didn't get much. Just a piercing on the top of my ear. A reminder.

"You've got some bad scars there, Goldilocks," the woman with the piercing gun commented. "What gang you in?"

I couldn't help laughing, probably semi-hysterically. "None, I'm afraid."

I could tell she didn't believe me, and that made the whole thing so much funnier.

I felt free as I bounced toward DT's house, fingering my sore ear. True, piercing my ear hadn't exactly been the smartest decision, or the most psychologically healthy, but it worked. For me. It gave me the physical confidence I was lacking. I felt almost... pretty.

I pressed DT's buzzer firmly. He picked up in seconds. "Hello?"

I leaned against the wall. "Hey DT, mind letting me up?"

"Aria." A sigh. "I should've known."

The door buzzed open. I went up. DT was already holding the door open for me.

He must have been sleeping. His hair was more all over the place than usual and he was wearing only a white T-shirt and sweats. There were dark rings under his eyes.

His apartment was shabby, with beige colored walls and mismatching furniture. There were piles of paper everywhere, no doubt from his various studies. I picked up one and attempted to examine it before he snatched it out of my hands.

"Would you like to explain why you felt it was necessary to break out of St. Mungo's just to come all the way here to see me?" He fell into an armchair that was vaguely reminiscent of the one in his St. Mungo's office, except a whole lot uglier.

I pulled the two piles of paper out of my bag. "I finished my assignment. And they said you weren't coming back for another couple of days."

He took the stacks and set them carefully on his coffee table, his eyes widening as he realized what I meant. "Aria, this is..."

"I'm ready, DT."

He looked up at me, his eyes examining me, trying to find any indicator I was lying. And then he smiled, slow and wide. "I know you are." He glanced down. "I don't need to talk to you about this. You've already figured things out yourself."

I stood straight. "It wasn't me. If I'd been like Cissy, the same thing would've happened. There was nothing I could to do to stop it. My mom was insane. And I'm choosing not to let her fuck me up too."

"Good for you Aria."

Good for me.

I sat gingerly on the other chair, which looked like it might collapse at any minute. "Even if I am ready to go back... I'm still going to need-"

"Therapy. Weekly. You didn't think I was going to just let you off on your own now? It takes years to fully sort yourself out. Even if you've done the initial job on this, it's still going to need a lot more work." DT yawned. "I'll pay you visits while you're at Hogwarts. That way we can be sure you're doing okay."

I shifted in the chair. "I still don't feel like me all the way. I'm not as... all over the place as I used to be."

DT's smile was soft and sympathetic. "It's called growing up, Aria. Maturing. There's not anything wrong with that. Your friends will love you no matter what."

I tried to stop it, but I couldn't help it. The tears began flowing down my face for what must have been the millionth time. Only this time, they were relieved.

The next day, we set out, me, DT, and a nurse. And headed towards Hogwarts.

Next chapter: Sirius's POV!

So, Aria's heading back. What will happen? How will things turn out? I have no idea!

Kidding. I do know what's going to happen. It'd be awfully bad if I didn't. (This is why outlines are important. Don't try doing what I did early on in the story and just right whatever comes to mind. It doesn't work!)

So, please, please, please REVIEW!

And happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I am so grateful for all of you!