J. K. Rowling has claim to everything in this story! I claim nothing, except perhaps the plot and some characters I made up but if she wants them too she can have it.

WARNING

At the end of the chapter there are some depressive themes that could trigger ones depression. I'll put a little * before hand but please if you are not comfortable reading something like that, DON'T.

Scorpius quickly caught his breath and then proceeded to narrow his eyes at his slightly younger twin. "Are you avoiding me?"

"Didn't the running away give it away?" Higgs snorted at the same time Eva blurted out "No! Of course not."

Eva turned and glared at her companion, "Not helping." She said between gritted teeth.

"So you are avoiding me." Scorpius clarified.

Eva sighed a long-suffering sigh as she turned her eyes up to the ceiling and thought to herself 'oh woe is me'. After a couple seconds of deliberation and thinking, she looked back at her brother and rather vaguely said "I'm not avoiding you specifically, I'm more avoiding the entirety of fifth year."

"Why?" Eva's answer was more confusing than it was helpful in Scorpius's opinion.

"Because I knocked her up at one of our sex cult meetings." Higgs deadpanned.

"YOU WHAT!?" Scorpius nearly fainted from shock then and there.

Eva's glare at Higgs could have melting this flesh off his bones. "Really not helping." She turned back to Scorpius to try and do some damage control. "Scorp, I'm not pregnant."

"You're part of a sex cult?" He blinked as the shock started to slowly clear.

"No! And I haven't slept with Higgs before you ask that stupid question." Eva crossed her arms in front of her chest, starting to feel a bit more confident and more than a bit annoyed. Deciding that it was better to come out with it now while she felt slightly more in control, she took a breath and made a quick prayer. "I'm avoiding your year because I've already taken my O.W.L.s and am therefore no longer a fifth year." There was a sharp intake of breath. "More specifically, I'm avoiding our friends and you because of the look of betrayal currently plastered across your face."

"You-"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I wasn't sure how." Any emotion had now left Eva's voice entirely.

Scorpius closed his mouth suddenly, spun on his heal and stormed away without another word. Leaving Eva to stare at where he had been standing not seconds ago. She and Higgs stood there in silence for several minutes before he stepped closer and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"You alright?" When she didn't reply he turned her around so that she was facing him. "Eva?"

"He hates me." She whispered.

"Nah, I'm sure he'll be over it by the end of the week." Higgs gave her a small smile.

She shook her head. "No." She finally looked up at him with tears lining her eyes. "He's never looked at me like that." Her voice finally starting to crack from the monotone.

"Eva, it'll be fine. He'll forgive you eventually." Seeing the witch on a verge of a breakdown, he pulled her into a hug and held her tight. "Sure, it'll be hard at first because he's stubborn as a mule and has the temper of a blast-ended skrewt." His comparisons elicited a sad chuckle from Eva. "But give him time and he'll come to his senses."

"Probably after he's told all of our friends." She mumbled into his shoulder.

"Yeah probably after he's let them all know." He admitted with a sigh.

"They're all going to hate me too." She added with a sniffle.

"They'll be angry, but they haven't really got a foot to stand on as they didn't bother to notice where you've been since term started – and you weren't exactly hard to find." He tucked her head under his chin when she muttered something inaudible. "They haven't been great friends to you recently Eva, but if they do give you too much trouble you've always got Steph and me to complain to."

"Thank you, Cole," Eva said with another sniffle as she extracted herself, "You do realise I'm never going leave you or Urquhart alone now though? I'll be constantly complaining about all the grief they'll be giving me."

"I don't mind," Cole shrugged before clearing his throat. "I know something that'll cheer you up."

"What?"

He grinned, "The Transfiguration lesson we're now very late for."

"You can't avoid them forever you know?" Urquhart announced not looking up from the essay he was adding the final touches to.

"Watch me." Eva snarked from her side of the table they'd taken over in one of the furthest corners of the library. They'd been there ever since the end of Transfiguration and had only left very briefly to grab something to eat for dinner from the kitchens. Cole joined them after dinner, having spent the afternoon with Scorpius throwing glares at him during Quidditch practice.

"Eva-" Cole started.

"Can't I just sleep with both of you?" Urquhart chocked on the air in his lungs and Eva blushed as soon as the words left her mouth, she dropped her head into her hands from mortification.

"Didn't know you were into that." Cole chuckled. "Maybe we should start up that sex cult."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Eva groaned.

"In all seriousness even if we did have a spare bed for you to sleep on, you might run into Scorpius or your other siblings and then you'd have to explain that mess," Cole pointed out.

"Especially if you were caught exiting our bedroom." Urquhart added as he put his quill down. "Better to deal with your friends upstairs, you might even be able to do some damage control without your brother around."

"Exactly, think about it that way."

"I think I'd prefer to sleep in this chair." Eva mumbled.

"Have it your way," Urquhart said as he started to pack up his stuff, "but we're going to sleep in our comfy beds. Have fun in that uncomfortable wooden chair."

Cole stood as well, "I'll say a prayer for your back in the morning." He said with a wink, "Night Eva." And with that, Eva was left alone in the back of the library.

Fifteen seconds went by before Eva sighed and started packing up her stuff, "I hate it when they're right." Her bum was already numb having spent many hours sat in that exact chair studying. Once on her feet she stretched and winced when she heard the symphony of cracks her body created.

When she reached the grand staircase the boys, who were a few flights below, caught sight of her as she started to make her journey in the opposite direction and shouted up to her in unison, "Told you we were right!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She muttered in response as she started to trudge upwards.

She stopped one corridor shy of the Gryffindor Common Room and slumped against the wall, she didn't know what was waiting for her and was trying to rally up the courage to go inside. After a several attempts of rounding the corner she froze when she heard footsteps walking towards her – from the common room.

"Woah." Bellamy Wood exclaimed as he nearly fell into her. "Sorry Eva," He apologised as he helped her up and righted himself. "What are you doing out here?"

"Not going in."

"Ah, you don't know how the others are going to react?"

Eva started her head in affirmation but stopped, "How do know what happened?"

Bellamy ran a hand through his hair, "Your brother may have announced what happened to your friends rather loudly at dinner." He explained before looking a bit confused and adding, "He also said something about you in a sex cult."

Eva only just resisted the urge to facepalm. "Please tell me he didn't say that loudly. I'm not!" She added, "But please tell me he didn't announce that to the entire school."

"Oh no, no!" He reassured her quickly, "I just happened to be sat next to them when your brother was explaining what happened in the corridor to James and Roxy." Eva seemed to relax a little bit but not much. "It's not that bad in there you know, they're pretty pissed but James had already gone up to his dorm when I left."

Eva just nodded, "You should probably set off on your rounds now. Thanks though Bellamy."

"No problem Eva," He smiled at her, "Don't beat yourself up about it too much, okay?"

Eva gulped as she stepped through the portrait hole, Roxy was currently sitting on the armchair by the fire that faced towards the exit, an opened book now forgotten on her lap. Eva took a step towards her, "Rox I di-"

She was cut off by her friend's arm going up. "I don't want to hear it." Roxy's voice was frosty as she turned back to her book, now blatantly ignore the Gryffindor Malfoy.

"Roxy, I'm sorry." Eva whispered as she walked past, on her way to their shared dormitory.

The next morning Eva was the first to enter the Great Hall and had left with a small bundle of food in hand before any other students had come down for their meal. Having made her way to the Black Lake, she sat down on the chilled grass just above stony shores and decided to pass the time before classes began by reading up on a chapter in her Transfiguration textbook whilst picking at the toast she'd made and the grapes she'd brought out with her.

* Pretty quickly her mind wandered from the topic in front of her and she found herself thinking about her friends. She thought not only of the debacle she was in now but also of how things had been last year, how whenever she was around the others would talk over her. It always took several tries to get a word in and normally it was ignored or moved on from fairly fast. They didn't really want her there, not really. She was the one that no one would miss if she wasn't there, they could have fun without her, they had inside jokes that didn't include her. She was the tag along, the outsider. Scorpius and James were each other's best friend and Roxy had replaced her with Castilla. They only really kept her around for when they needed help, and in fact if Scorpius didn't get distracted so often then they wouldn't even have needed her for that. It even took them several weeks to notice that she wasn't in classes with them. Fred had managed to forget about her as well, which was fair enough, their kiss was eons ago and she wasn't that good looking or anything. But he'd also seemed to forget that they were friends. Eva's thoughts about her old classmates and best friends swirled in her head for a while before her mind focused on her new friends. Cole and Stephan were great, but if she was being honest with herself, they'll probably tire of having her around. She was quite a bother. She's the younger kid who managed to go up a year. Smart arse – and not in a good way. But she wasn't actually that smart, not really. She had to work hard for her grades, she could never just wing it. But Scorp and even Mel and Markos were able to do almost no work and get grades that were just as good. She was the dud in the family. Her parents were super smart, and her siblings were also super intelligent-

Her thoughts were interrupted suddenly by a hand appearing on her shoulder. She looked up to see Fred looking at her, "Hey Eva."

"Hi Fred," She turned her eyes back to her book in her lap and quickly wiped away any tears that had sprung. "What's up?"

"Don't you have Herbology with Castilla now?" His head cocked to the side as he asked.

She looked down at her watch and noticed she'd already missed the first half of the double period. "Yes, sorry... I'll just- See you later." Eva scrambled to her feet and quickly got out of Fred's way. She sprinted over to the greenhouses, but as she was nearing them, she crashed into Cole who had been making his way over to the Quidditch Pitch for a fly. "I'm so sorry- I didn't mean to. I didn't see you; I was in such a rush. I've already missed first period." She rambled as she helped him to his feet and grabbed her stuff off the floor. "I'm sorry."

"I'm fine don't worry." Cole gave her a reassuring smile, but she kept her gaze on the floor under the pretence of making sure she had everything. "Eva are you alright?"

"Yes. Yeah I'm fine." She said absentmindedly, meeting his eyes to give him a brief smile.

Cole frowned. "Now I'm going to ask again and you're going to tell me the truth this time. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, don't-" Her smile faltered as she noticed his unimpressed stare. She looked down at her feet again. "I'm not, but I'll be fine," She said quickly. "I don't want to be a bother."

Cole just looked at her and seemed to be analysing her. "You're coming with me." He said as he picked up his broom.

"But I have Herbology and-"

"You're already late, you'll just make it worse by going now. So you're coming with me." He put an arm around her shoulder and started to guide her in the direction of the pitch. "We're going to go flying and you're going to tell me what's wrong. Then you're going to forget all about whatever it is - for a bit at least."

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. Hope it was worth it... sorry if the bottom half seemed like a bit of a filler but gonna be honest Eva needed it.

Let me know what you think :)

Lizzy