Chapter Six: Lilac

I stood there in the bathroom, as the purple, lilac tainted blood flowed from the long thin gash in my arm. It just wouldn't stop. It flowed like a damned river choking the life from its very veins. I was trying to stop it, just realizing what I had done, but it wasn't working. The more I pressed, the more it flowed. I was soon loosing feeling in my hand, the numbness was taking over, and when I touched my pale though freckled skin it felt unearthly. It hurt. I didn't know it would hurt that bad. It stunned, like a bee sting but right to the bone and all over. Oh god, why would it stop. Please, I pleaded with my own flesh, stop, I didn't meant to. I really didn't. I closed my eyes in attempt to stop the flood of tears. I had no energy left as if, all of it was usurped it the matter of seconds. I was done, cooked, cut, finished. Sliding to the sparkling white tile floor, I lay there in listlessness, not feeling anything. Just watching the flow of my own blood from elbow to wrist. My arm was splayed and I had to laugh at that. It was splayed just like the early martyrs of Christendom were. Except I wasn't dying for anything except myself. I wanted to be in control, so I was, in a way. I was in control of my own death. Aren't I a greedy little bitch. But they wont really care in the end and I'll be too dead to care, so that's that. Poor, poor Ron. Yes, poor, poor me. I try to move my arm to a more comfortable position but it hurts even more , sending spasms of tremendous pain. I gasp in realization, I am afraid. Despite this mask, I am afraid. Afraid, such an interesting word. And I am foolish too. A foolish, foolish Ron am I. I close my eyes as the tears have finally won, in making my body rack with them. It is so cold in here. So very cold and the my shivering makes it even worse. Pictures float through the inside of my eyelids, mostly containing Harry and HER. Yes, HER, my Queen of Spades. But when was she ever mine. All the pictures, even sketched of her are there, haunting me, taunting me. Even the full portrait watercolor, I did almost a week ago. Even my own fantasies swim through, coming and going. Her smile that never ceased to make me smile back, here dark eyes, her ivory yet sparsely freckled skin, not tampered like my own. Her hair like the night, fluttery and flowing, her hands so strong yet so soft, her laughter, her wit, her insane ability to make everyone notice her. Her lips, which I so wished to kiss. Tears flowed, freely down my cheeks, stinging my already chapped cheeks. A small gasp escaped my lips. Oh gods what have I done?

Annie knew something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. She had this forbodding feeling about something. That usual meant something was amiss. She took one last puff from her Salem Light and put it out, placing in the ashtray. Getting to her feet from her laguid position, she started to pace. She had a sixth sense of ferreting trouble and she was fed up with fantasies of what was wrong. Then she heard stifled sobs from the bathrooms. Oh god...her mind was running along familiar territory remembering what she'd done to herself. But what bathroom? She searched, the girl and was about to search the prefects, when she heard the cried coming, distinctly from the boy's. The light was still on and she took a few more steps in, before she found him.

"Ron!"

"I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to!" He was almost screaming as if he had lost his hearing. Annie put a silencing spell around them.

"Ron, what--" But she was cut off by his frantic words.

"Why wont it stop bleeding, oh gods please just make it stop bleeding!" His words were coming out in sobs.

Annie knelt down next to him, carefully judging the situation. She reached out to him, but he flinched away. Annie magicked a large towel to her side.

"Ron, I am only trying to help."

Ron was trying to figure out who was there. God...he prayed, 'it's not Harry, is it?' from whatever corner his mind was still semi-sane. Annie finally took control of Ron's arms. Ron thought he was going insane, excruciating pain attacked from all sides. Someone had taken hold of his injured arm. He had tried to pull away but to no avail. He felt a tingling, soft feeling spread through his arm, but still couldn't think clearly through all the pain. Whoever the person was, put a glass of water to his lips and he drank it eagerly. His vision wasn't so blurry anymore and he could see who had found him. Annie.

"Please, don't take me to Madam Pomfrey, please, not to Madam Pomfrey!" He pleaded, the tears flowing more incessantly now.

"Okay, Ron I won't take you to Madam Pomfrey, but you're going to have to cooperate with me. Let's get out of this bathroom." She helped him to his feet, but he was still in great anguish, even after the pain mediation she'd just given him. She finally got Ron to one of the couches in the Common Room.

"Why won't it stop?" He cried out between wracking sobs, that twisted and tossed his pale body.

"You're not putting enough pressure on it."

She took his arm again, and applied as much pressure as she dared.

"Oh god, I didn't mean to do it! You must believe me!" He reached out clasping her hands his good one.

"Now Ron, I don't care about that. Just relax, it's going to hurt a lot f you want me to fix you up, rather than Madam Pomfrey."

She turned to get him to focus on her.

"I don't want to die." He coughed out just as Annie had put a Silencing Spell over them.

Annie sat in the chair right across from him. In seconds she had summoned all the supplies, she needed. Pulling off the towel, she saw his wound for the first time. He had cut himself with something dull from elbow to wrist, and it was clean to the bone. She dropped another pain pill in the glass of water and gave it too him. It was a rusty cut, some parts were jagged, but luckily it looked clean. It took Annie the better part of an hour to sew his arm up, then she placed some salve on it. Grabbing some bandaged she started to wrap the whole lower half of his arm. He was still awake, although she looked up and found that he was watching her through glazed, watery eyes. The look he gave her said, multitudes. That he trusted her with the world. And right now, she needed that, because he was trusting her with the world, his world. But that could be, because he is heavily drugged right now.

She turned to face him, so she toed the bandage off, around his hand. She held it for awhile, trying to rub the blood back into the pale flesh. She smiled sadly, she wanted to know why he did it, but I already know don't I.

"It always hurts the first time." She said bittersweetly as they sat in the darkness, while Ron went into a heavily drugged sleep, while Annie continued to rub the lower half of her arms.