The rain had been pouring down for over a week, seemingly with no end. He didn't mind though. The foul weather kept most of the students inside, and those who did go outside for a little bit would never come his way.

The Forbidden Forest seemed to quiet when it rained, seemed harmless. He knew better than to enter, but the rain made it seem like it didn't matter. He was not too far inn, just a few meters past the trees that marked the beginning of the forest. To most students, that was a few meters too far.

He always went there when he had to think, and with the rain, he knew he would not be disturbed. Not even his friends would follow, which was what he wanted, but it still made him feel something he couldn't describe.

He was sitting under a tree, staring off into the forest, ignoring the rain that soaked him to the skin. The tree had been struck by lightening earlier in the week, and offered no cover any more. Had it been any tree but this he would have moved, sat down where he got some cover for the rain.

This three was different. It was special. It meant more to him than most of the things back at the school, and no one but him knew it.

He had been coming here for over a year, to this tree right on the border of the Forbidden Forest. He was out of sight for anyone who didn't know where he was, and he was close enough to school to be safe.

At first he had come because he needed a place to think, mourn, he needed a place that was quiet, and away from everyone else.

In time he had dealt with his grief, and everything else that had been bothering when he first found the place. But just because the problems that started it all were gone, it didn't mean he didn't need to come here.

He had gotten used to being alone, gotten used to be able to clear his head while he stared into the woods. When he could come here to think, he didn't feel the need to distance himself so much from everyone else anymore.

Here he could think, here he could deal, and here he could do what had to be done in order to hide what he was from the rest of the school.

Here, he could be himself. Back there, he was someone else. And as long as he could be himself sometimes, being someone else the rest of the time didn't bother him anymore.