Author's note: i think you've all had quite enough fluff for now - sorry :/

i wanted to get this up earlier but online school is a bitch and ive not been having the best time so thank you for bearing with me.

Hope you are all doing well xx

Unlike the rest of Hogwarts, Ebony woke up early on Boxing Day. She'd had quite possibly the best nights sleep she'd had in a long time.

She ventured down to the great hall to nab some toast before waiting for Neville to wake up.

Neville.

Ebony was still drunk with joy. She could replay the night before, moment by moment in her head, feeling her stomach somersault as if she were reliving it again.

She'd kissed her best friend.

All along she hadn't been kidding herself. Neville looked at her and saw more than a friend. He saw something in her that she couldn't. He saw something good.

She loved the way he made her insides go all funny. The way his eyes were always so bright. She loved how his hand had felt against her cheek, so soft and gentle. His touch was so caring, she never wanted him to let go.

She made her way back towards the stairs, chewing her toast, a spring in her step. She saw Draco coming along the corridor.

"Morning," she said brightly, smiling as she walked past him.

"Have a nice snog last night?"

Ebony stopped dead in her tracks, her heart skipping several beats.

And just like that, her bubble of happiness had been burst.

She spun on her heel to face him. "What?"

He crossed his arms and scoffed, "Don't play dumb with me Ebony, I saw you two. Looked rather cosy."

And in that moment all of her doubts and fears that she had managed to push aside came rushing back into her head. She felt as though she were drowning under it all.

"You were spying on me?"

Draco ignored her question and took a step towards her. "How could you be so stupid?" he snapped, his tone making her flinch. "Swanning about together like that, in front of everyone."

"It's no secret we are friends-"

"I think a lot of people in the hall saw a lot more than that."

Ebony just closed her eyes and swallowed. She had been stupid, she couldn't deny that. But at the same time she couldn't help feeling that whatever came next, it had all been worth it for her few moments of pure bliss.

She opened her eyes and stared at her cousin, a fit of new anger swirling inside her. It wasn't his place to tell her she was wrong. If he truly cared about her, he should want her to be happy.

"So what?" She crossed her arms too.

"What do you mean, so what?" he said, frowning angrily, "if they find out-"

"I do not need you to tell me what they will do!" she shouted, her voice echoing off the stone walls of the empty corridor, "I think I know better than anyone." She stepped towards him and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "Well, if you know what's good for you, they won't hear it from you."

Draco yanked himself free of her grip, looking rather startled.

Ebony didn't like acknowledging she shared traits with her parents but she had to admit, her mother's stare and temper could come in useful.

"I wasn't going to," he muttered, straightening his clothes, "I wouldn't do that to you."

"How touching," Ebony replied, almost snarling. Her relationship with him had already started to fall apart in the summer. She wasn't quite sure where they stood anymore.

"You can't keep this from them forever. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I'm a big girl Draco, I can look after myself thanks."

And with that, she turned sharply and headed back towards Gryffindor tower, ignoring the tremor passing through her body and her heart pounding in her ears.

...

She didn't see if anyone else in her dorm was awake, she merely went straight to the bathroom and locked the door.

Ebony sat against the toilet, her knees drawn up to her chest, trying to ignore the silent tears rolling down her face. For one moment, for just a second she had convinced herself that she could've been happy. That the boy who she had called her best friend for the longest time might've been something more because when she looked into his eyes she forgot about them. For one blissful moment, she forgot expectations and traditions and convinced herself that her life could be different.

That it could be filled with smiles and laughter, picnics by lakes and kisses under a starry sky.

She wanted to be fourteen. She wanted to have silly crushes and make her own mistakes. She wanted to be childish and mess around.

She didn't want to think about getting married.. She didn't want to think about the life she didn't want but was being given.

She had no idea what to do.

She knew that she needed to move on from Neville, get some more 'acceptable' friends and accept her fate.

But the thought of it broke her heart.

...

Eventually Ebony abandoned her post in the bathroom due to the three other girls needing to use it. She moved onto her bed and pulled the curtains closed.

She needed to talk to Neville. But she couldn't.

Ebony just wanted to pretend for a little longer.

She wasn't quite sure how long she'd been moping in her bed but eventually Ginny came to find her.

"So this is where you've been hiding." Ginny said, crawling through the curtains and making herself comfortable.

"I'm not hiding," Ebony muttered and Ginny snorted.

"Sure."

"I'm not."

"Well, Neville's been moping downstairs for ages and you haven't spoken to him all morning." Ginny poked her elbow, "come on, whats happened?"

"It's complicated." That was an understatement.

"How so?"

Ebony closed her eyes and sighed. "We kissed."

Ginny's face stretched into a grin which then disappeared when her friend didn't match her enthusiasm.

"And it was bad?"

"No, it wasn't."

Ebony could almost still feel the warmth of his lips against hers. Oh, what she would do to feel them again, even just once.

"I don't see a problem." Ginny was looking incredibly confused. "You both finally admitted your feelings."

"The problem was that it wasn't bad." It sounded ridiculous when she said it out loud.

"I'm confused."

"I told you it was complicated"

"Why don't you just talk to him?"

Why did everything have to come down to talking?

"It's not that easy," Ebony said, wishing that it could be.

"Well you need to, I'm sick of him looking like a lost puppy." Ginny patted her leg and then ducked out of the curtains.

Ebony rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

The thought of looking Neville in the eye and telling him the truth made her want to throw up.

She thought about not telling him, letting them live in the little fantasy they had created.

But as brave as she tried to be, Ebony was scared of what could happen.

To both of them.

...

Ebony dragged herself down towards the common room, fighting the urge to turn around every step.

She had to do this. Otherwise, he would get hurt.

"Oh hello," he said, smiling and bounding up to her like an excitable dog. When she didn't match his smile, his faltered. "Are you alright?"

His eyes were full of concern, a look that usually made her want to roll her eyes. Now it made her want to cry.

"Can we go somewhere?" she said, glancing around the busy common room, "To talk?"

Neville's brow furrowed anxiously. "Er...yeah."

...

The two of them walked in silence down the corridor before slipping into an empty classroom.

Ebony flopped against a wall and let out a long breath. She couldn't do this.

"Is everything ok?"

"Draco saw us last night, in the courtyard," she blurted, watching Neville's mouth open slightly. Well, there went her plan of breaking it to him gently. "he told me this morning."

"That's why you disappeared then."

"Yes," she said, " he felt the need to remind me what my parents would do if they found out." Ebony watched him grimace slightly. She rubbed her face with her hands, "He has promised not to say anything though, so that's one thing."

"So it's fine then?"

Ebony almost laughed. She adored him but Merlin he could be very fucking stupid.

"This is quite possibly the furthest thing from fine!" she snapped, ignoring the startled look on his face, "if he saw us, who knows if anyone else did. We shouldn't even be friends and you know that!" Ebony didn't want to shout at him but she couldn't help it, it was all so unfair.

"But it's been fine up til now," he protested, an edge of hurt in his voice, "why would this change things?"

"It just does."

"Don't you think that maybe you might be ... " he hesitated. "Overreacting?"

"They tortured me because I failed two of my exams!" She exploded, "You really want to stand there and suggest that I'm 'overreacting' ?"

Neville looked stunned. "They did what...?

"I told you they'd used that!"

Ebony hadn't quite figured out how she thought the conversation would go but it wasn't like this.

"I...I know..."

"So forgive me if I don't particularly want them to find out that I have been friends with and kissed a bloodtraitor whose parents were big opposers to the Dark Lord!"

Neville was crying now even though he was clearly trying not to. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Looking at his red blotchy face was enough to cool her anger a little.

She hadn't even realised she'd had that in her.

"If word gets back to them somehow," she said, her voice a lot calmer but not quite steady, " I don't even want to think what they would do to me, or even you."

"What if they didn't?" He asked tentatively, wiping his face with his sleeve, "what if they never found out?"

A tear escaped from her eye and she hastily wiped it away.

"This would still be a waste of time, my whole life is planned out for me." Ebony slid down the wall with her legs outstretched. "They won't marry me off till I'm seventeen but they will probably get me engaged before then."

A second tear followed the first.

"Then I'll be stuck in some awful marriage like my parents and have children that I will resent."

All of her anger had now fizzled out, she was just tired. Tired of swimming against the tide for the smallest of things. Tired of losing things that made her happy.

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Ebony said and she hung her head and blinked back a couple of tears, his gentle voice somehow making everything worse. "I should've told you last night. I should've never let it go that far but..." she inhaled, "but for the first time in my life I was just so unbelievably happy."

Neville seemed to have run out of comforting words.

"I wish I could say that last night was a mistake-" she saw a flicker of hurt in Neville's eyes- "but I can't. You're the first person that doesn't look at me like I'm a complete waste of space, " she said, giving a watery laugh at the ridiculousness of it. "I want this, whatever the fuck this is I want it, but I'm trapped. And I'm sorry." Her voice began to crack. " I'm sorry that I dragged you along knowing that it would have to stop. Because going any further would be suicidal."

Ebony let out a shaky exhale and let a couple more tears trickle down her cheek.

"So what does this mean?"

She looked up and wished she hadn't.

Neville was stood looking down at her, his eyes puffy and bloodshot, pain, disappointment and anger somehow all etched on his face at once.

"That maybe we shouldn't hang out so much anymore."

Ebony had to force the words out of her mouth, hating them the second they left. She'd tried so hard not to lose him and yet here she was, pushing him away.

She had to remind herself it was the best for him.

Neville's bottom lip quivered and more tears rolled down his face.

"I had to do this," she said, trying her best to smile, "I don't want you to get hurt."

"This hurts."

His words punched her in the gut.

She knew he wasn't just going to easily accept what she had to say. But he would understand. His pain would go away and he would move on.

Why did he have to pick her? He could've picked anyone else. Hannah Abbott was lovely and she liked Herbology. Luna was kind and funny in her own strange way. Even Ginny would've been better.

It didn't matter what happened to her, as long as he was happy.

Neville just stayed where he was, looking as though she had stabbed him.

She didn't look at him, she couldn't look at him.

Neither of them knew what to say.

Neither of them knew how to fix it.

...

For the next week, an uncomfortable rift formed between the two of them and, despite Neville's many efforts, Ebony withdrew from everyone.

Being on her own was how she knew to handle things. As soon as anyone was in the equation then that's when things got messy and people got hurt.

Having someone by her side was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

She couldn't be near him, she couldn't bear to be reminded of what she convinced herself she could have, of what had been within her reach.

When classes started back up again in January, she moved away from him.

He did their usual three pulses on their necklaces every night.

She didn't respond.

But she also couldn't bring herself to take it off.

She'd not spoken to him for a week and she felt more alone than she had in her life.

His words from that night were playing on loop in the back of her head:

You're braver than you give yourself credit for.

Yet here she was, running from the thing she wanted most in the world because she was scared.

And she was too scared to even admit just how terrified she was.

She didn't want to look weak, feel weak.

She wanted to convince herself she was strong enough to handle it.

...

Neville looked up the table to where Ebony was sat, alone.

He missed his best friend even more than he thought he would.

Christmas played on a loop inside his head, his brain taunting him.

It hurt all the more because he had almost expected it to go to pieces. He was Neville Longbottom, when did anything ever go his way?

Christmas had been a stroke of luck.

And now it seemed, a one-off.

He was so scared to admit his feelings in case she didn't feel the same way.

But she did and Ebony had still walked away from him.

He watched Ebony shove her plate away and walk out of the hall.

If it was what was truly best for her, Neville could live with the heartache.

But she looked so miserable he couldn't help but think it was doing more harm than good.

He wished Christmas had never happened. He didn't care about his new found feelings anymore, he would quite happily spend his life pining if it meant that he could just have his best friend back.

...

Ebony was stood digging through her trunk, her transfiguration textbook had to be in there somewhere.

"Oi!"

She briefly looked up and spotted Ginny coming in the doorway. "What do you want Ginny?"

"What's going on with you?"

Ebony stiffened. "Nothing.'

"Bullshit," Ginny said, leaning against the bedpost. Ebony still didn't look at her.

She'd done a very good job at avoiding everyone so far but Ginny it seemed, had other ideas.

"It's complicated," she muttered. Where was her bloody book?

"Everything's complicated with you isn't it?"

Ebony just grunted. She wasn't in the mood.

"You and Neville haven't spoken for like ten days and you're telling me it's nothing?"

Ebony's heart ached at the sound of his name.

She really fucking missed him.

"It's just something that should've happened a long time ago," she said, rapidly blinking back the tears that were threatening to fall and digging through her trunk more vigorously. The quicker she could get away from Ginny, the better.

"What?"

Ebony sighed and finally looked at her friend. "We should never have been friends," she said, "My parents don't like him. Or you for that matter."

"I've never met them!"

"Well, they don't like your family." Ebony watched the realisation wash over her.

"Oh, the whole bloodtraitor thing," she said with a shrug. "What's it matter anyway, they're not here."

Ebony gave an exasperated sigh, why was everything so difficult for everyone to understand? "No, but if they found out then..."

No, definitely didn't want to do this right now.

"Then what?"

One thing that Ebony enjoyed about being on her own - nobody asked hundreds of questions every five minutes.

"Can you just go away?" Where was it? Where was it? Ebony just wanted to be alone.

"No, then what? What are they gonna do?"

"Piss off Ginny!" She shouted and Ginny looked a little startled. Ebony finally found her book. She slammed her trunk shut and rammed it back under the bed.

Ginny gently took her arm. "You can't just shut everyone out because you're upset."

Ebony shrugged her off and stared at Ginny coldly.

"Watch me."

She barged past Ginny and out the door.

...

Ginny found Neville in one of the greenhouses. He hadn't been himself at all in the past few weeks. Neither of her friends had but while Ebony sought refuge inside herself, Neville found it with his plants.

"Hey Neville," she said as she leant her back against the table he was working at. He didn't look up.

"Hi, Ginny." His usual bright tone was missing.

"We need to talk."

He paused but still didn't look at her. She took that as an invitation to continue.

"It's Ebony," she said, watching his face twist with an emotion that she couldn't recognise. "What's it like for her, at home?"

She'd been growing concerned about Ebony since she'd noticed the bruises at the start of term, now her earlier outburst had made Ginny want to seek answers.

And it seemed good to start with the person who knew her best.

Neville looked at her then, the trowel in his hand gently slipping from his grip. "What do you mean?"

"Well, first of all, I saw the bruises on her neck at the start of term, I did ask her but she-"

Neville cut her off with a chuckle which made her frown. Surely the matter was not one to laugh at?

"Let me guess," he said, "she told you, possibly the bare minimum then asked you to drop it."

"Yes."

"That figures," he said, looking down at his hands, smiling rather sadly, "that's Ebony for you, stubborn to a fault. Won't burden anyone else with her problems. Insists on managing alone."

"But you know some of it?"

Neville sighed, picking dirt from his nails. "Not as much as I should." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "It's bad though, as you might have guessed. Saying her family don't get on would be the understatement of the century."

Suddenly, everything in Ginny's mind began to fall into place. The bruises, her reluctance to go home last year, even the offhand comment she made at the Quidditch World Cup about her parents not missing her.

Her friend was not okay.

And probably hadn't been for a while.

"Whatever you're imagining," Neville continued and Ginny noticed his hands curling into fists, "times it by a hundred. Then I think you are close."

"That's not right, she needs to tell someone!" Ginny was trying to figure out how this had been allowed to go on for so long.

"Welcome to what I've been doing for years," Neville said, picking up his tools again. "She won't talk to anyone, she doesn't see the point. The Lestranges are a powerful family, no one would win against them. Then she'd be worse off than before."

He dug at the soil rather aggressively.

"So that's what this silly fight is about-"

"We're not fighting." Ginny raised her eyebrows at him.

"Well, whatever it is that you're doing, it's because she's scared of what might happen if her mum and dad found out about you two?"

"Yes." Neville sighed deeply. "And I could respect her decision and move on somewhat easily, well not easily." The thought of the situation never resolving seemed to make him tear up. "But she's unhappy Ginny. It's not what she wants, it's what they want and it's not fair!"

Ginny heard the pain in his voice and realised that they all underestimated how much he cared for her.

"It's not what you want either is it?"

"Of course not but I'm not important right now," he said, "She's not eating Ginny. I've seen her at meals and she just shoves her food around the plate then leaves. And when was the last time someone actually spoke to her? She's not good when she's alone because she bottles everything up and is too stubborn to do anything about it. She's probably not sleeping too well either, the dark circles under her eyes are getting bigger."

Ginny watched a tear roll down his face.

"I miss her," he said and his voice cracked.

"Oh come here, you big softie." Ginny wrapped him up in her arms despite him being a lot bigger than her. He spent so much of his time looking out for other people, he needed someone to look out for him.

Especially since the person who usually would was neglecting her duties.

...

The big black snake coiled up on her bedroom floor, hissing loudly.

"Come on, don't be a coward."

Ebony looked around. "Whose there?"

"Let it in child."

"Be who you are supposed to."

The room was too dark to tell who the voice belonged to.

"Why won't you be a good girl Ebony?"

The snake flew at her, it's mouth wide open -

Ebony jolted awake with a loud gasp, clutching her chest. It took her a moment to realise it wasn't real.

She was safe.

She was at Hogwarts and she was safe.

Her nightmares had gotten a lot worse in the past few weeks, to the point she tried not to sleep at all. But it never worked, her eyes would grow heavy and she couldn't stop them.

Ebony wasn't sure how much longer she could take it.

She hated how lost and empty she felt without Neville, like someone had torn her heart out. She hated how much she relied on him to feel sane, to feel safe.

He had tried several times to talk to her but she mumbled some excuse and fled. She couldn't be near him, it hurt too much.

Ginny seemed to have got the message and was leaving her alone, though somewhat reluctantly it seemed. She often caught her staring from across the room.

Ebony pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs, she couldn't stand to be in her bed.

Thankfully the common room was deserted, for once Ebony didn't fancy a late-night chat with a certain redhead.

She walked around the room, not trusting herself to get comfy on the sofa in case she fell asleep again.

That was when she saw on the notice board that Saturday was the next Hogsmeade trip and Ebony realised what she needed to figure things out.

More specifically who she needed.

...