A/N: HA. still nothing.

Did I forget to mention,this is AU? Probably. Did I also forget to mention I have no ownership over Harry Potter, or even better, Skins…? Well, I don't. –Sigh. Not all of us can get what we please. I think we, Skins fans, should unite and take over the world, make the Skins cast our entertainment slaves and force anyone who thinks otherwise to believe that Skins is the best show ever created.

Dark themes ahead... And so… the plot thickens… DUN, DUN, DUN….

Chapter Two

It was the twin's seventeenth birthday and both the girls were going about their 'special day' routines separately; Katie had convinced Rob to take them all to Paris for some fashion show in honor of her seventeenth, while Emily was left alone to watch over the house in their absence.

Sure, the average person may have been upset they were being abandoned while the rest of their family was going on a grand vacation out of the country; however, Emily was the furthest thing from it. She would rather have stayed back than gone with them; considering, had she gone, she'd probably have had to spend all the time trapped in a cheap hotel room while everyone else went out. By staying at home, she had the freedom to do almost anything she wanted without the constant supervision of a very restrictive Jenna.

Essentially, Emily had planned out her weeklong 'vacation' around all the activities she wasn't allowed to do when everyone else was present. Being the first day she decided to ease into the newfound, yet to be short-lived freedom, with something small…

She got out of her closet, which was left unlocked as there would be no one to allow her out, and only because Jenna couldn't rationalize locking Emily away seven days straight, even if Jenna had wanted to… Then the younger of the twins rummaged the kitchen for breakfast; the fridge was pretty much empty aside from the atrocious food Jenna had started cooking a few months ago in some health craze that was apparently all the rage in the real world… The only times Emily ever really cooked anymore were when the parents were absent and Katie and Britney bribed her to make something edible, only stooping 'low' enough to beg her because they hadn't been able to eat anything good with the way Jenna was feeding them.

They happened to beg so often that it made Emily realize that she was actually on the better end of the deal, not being allowed to eat at the table with everyone, therefore not being under Jenna's glare, forced to eat the nasty sludge that their mother had cooked. Instead, she would leave the house to go out and buy something cheap yet much tastier than anything currently in their fridge.

The money in Emily's wallet was all an accumulation from having worked around the area during any spare time she had over the past few years. She had hoped she could save enough to move out and live on her own, support herself by finding a decent and reliable job. In truth it wasn't even like Jenna was helping her with anything other than board, which could be argued to be nothing at all because that only included a braking cot in a ruddy closet. (Although she was also given the opportunity to go to college, which Emily was sure to take advantage of; she made sure she excelled in all her courses in hopes that she would be awarded a full scholarship to a university far from the rest of the Fitches.)

As she had figured, there wasn't really anything in the cabinets either, of course Jenna wouldn't have been kind enough to go grocery shopping for Emily before they all left (grocery shopping tended to be another one of Emily's chores anyway)… So Emily ended up leaving the house, finding the moped she had secretly bought from some guy cheaply at a garage sale she happened to pass on a walk one day. To avoid it being found, and likely towed by Jenna, she had kept it hidden a few blocks down behind a couple bushes where a forest started to gather in a park. She knew it didn't look new enough for anyone to bother trying to hot wire and steal if they happened to come across it.

With the helmet she kept hidden under the cot in her closet in hand, she managed to pull the moped out of the bushes with only semi-trouble. She received a few surprised looks from children and parents in the mentioned park, but she was gone long enough before anyone could start questioning her regarding her strange antics.

She was practically smiling as the wind blew through the spaces in her helmet, into her hair as she drove past the other cars in the direction of her favorite small town casual restaurant. She pulled up to it and parked her moped in a small space left between two closely parked cars right in the front of it. She carried her helmet by the chin strips as she opened the chiming door, feeling the nice air conditioning kiss away the sweat on her skin that had gathered in the short amount of time it took to get from her moped to inside.

The place was regularly busy, but fortunately for her she was able to find herself the small booth towards the back which she usually liked to occupy. It was far from the front windows, assuring her she'd be out of sight of any of the women from Jenna's friendship circle who may be passing; not that any of Jenna's friends would dare to step in a restaurant that wasn't known to be of high-class people, five star food, and top service.

It was about thirty minutes before a pimple-faced teenager with a notepad appeared by her side, ready to take her order as if it was the most boring and dumb task in the world, even if he was getting paid to do so pleasantly. Still, his unhappy mood couldn't get Emily down, she splurged on herself and ordered a large burger and fries, something she knew Jenna would probably gasp and call some type of emergency nutritionalist if she saw her eating it.

She had her head resting on her arms folded on the plastic table top, while her brown eyes were having a staring contest with the pepper and salt, and some unidentifiable substance in a small puddle beneath them, evidence of the last person to use the booth… The waiter coughed to gain her attention, snapping her out of the blank staring contest. The guy looked at her like she was crazy when she took the plate of greasy food from him and sniffed it as if it were some sort of heavenly ambrosia. Twenty more minutes later she was sat in front of an empty plate, rubbing her small and flat stomach feeling very stuffed. She paid the waiter, not really able to afford much of a tip, not that he'd actually deserved it with his attitude anyway…

On her way out she paused to look at an older man with a giant burger in his hands about to take a bite. She did a double take when she realized it's the same man that was the magician at Katie's party exactly eleven years ago. He didn't notice right away when she sat down in the seat opposite him. It's only when he finished chewing and put down the burger that he saw her brown eyes boring into him.

"What the bugger do you want?" He grunted.

"You're the magician." Emily said.

"There's no such thing as magic, now fuck off and let me eat my food in peace."

"That's not what you told me eleven years ago."

The guy folded his arms, now genuinely annoyed by the girl sitting in front of him, disturbing his peaceful lunch. A lunch that he was eating in secret because his girlfriend would certainly not approve of the place it was made, because the owner of the food chain supported some oil company that was disposing their waste in unapproved territories… "Who the fuck are you?"'

"Emily." She said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I don't recall any Emily." His Irish accent is thick, and assures Emily this is definitely the same man from the party.

"You said my name was lovely."

"I say a lot of things."

Emily stared at him silently, clearly as annoyed by his rude behavior as he was by her unexpected and unwanted intrusion. The man scratched his beard and leaned back with a sigh, "What do you want, Emily?"

"I want you to tell me why you didn't help me." She met his eyes and didn't allow him to look away from her harsh glare. (Arguably fiercer than any glare Jenna could possibly give, if Jenna wanted it to be more so.)

"I don't know what you're talking about." He mumbled, his angry and bothered side shying away, possibly out of shame, much less confident than before.

"Oh yes you do."

"Listen, Emily, not everyone can be a hero. I certainly don't claim to be one." He said, admitting he knew what they were now talking about it, even if he wasn't saying so directly.

"I was six years old. You were a grown man, clearly you could have done something, more than I could."

"It wasn't my place to do anything."

"Emily…" He sighed.

"Don't say my name like that, like you're actually sorry… It was obvious Jenna was abusing me and you left the party with your paycheck. You walked right past that closet out of my life when it was obvious there was something very, very off."

"What did you expect me to do? Grab you and run away? It doesn't work like that…"

"You could have done anything and it would've fucking helped. Called the police, child services... something for fuck's sake!"

He looked away ashamed and very unsure what to say to her. After a minute of silence he looked around the restaurant, made sure no one else was paying them any attention before saying something to Emily, "So… are things um… better now?"

"Are you shitting me?" Emily lifted up her shirt a few inches; he looked away at first but then realized she wasn't going to pull her shirt down until he looked. He gasped when he saw a giant purple and green bruise the size of a large fist on her rib cage and stomach. She put her shirt back down satisfied by his reaction. "To answer you with words, no, nothing has gotten any fucking better." She pauses between each of the last three words, letting their depth sink in, hard and blunt.

"What do you want me to do, Emily?" He sighed again…

"Do you remember the secret you told me, at that party?"

"No…"

"You said that if I used the words Abra Kadabra wonderful things would happen."

"I remember that now… so, what about it?"

"That's what I would say over and over again when she'd beat me. I'd say Abra Kadabra in hopes that the wonderful magic man would come and rescue me."

"Yeah, well, magic doesn't work kid. I guess you learned that the hard way." He chuckled lightly, probably out of feeling uncomfortable.

"It's your fault I had to put up with her bullshit for eleven more years."

"I get it, kid. Just tell me what the fuck you want me to do..."

"Nothing. There's nothing you can do, you never rescued me, you fucked everything up."

"I didn't fuck anything up, your Mum fucked you up nice and proper, don't blame that bullshit on me. You were six years old, I imagine you knew how to use a telephone; you could've phoned for help yourself. No need for me to step in and be the catalyst."

A look of confusion passes over the man's face, but it is quickly contorted into pain when she quickly climbed out of her seat and punched him in the face. She grabbed the shirt around his neck and smashed her fist into his face repeatedly, "I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. I FUCKING HATE YOU SO MUCH! ABRA KADABRA YOU FUCKING SODDY EXCUSE FOR A MAGICIAN!"

The man cried out in pain, she could hear him continue to whimper as she was being forcefully pulled off of him; her hands were being shoved behind her back while her body was shoved forward against a wall. Cold metal was locked tightly around her wrists; her kicking and screaming did nothing to help her escape. She ended up with a black eye by the time she's was being pushed into the back of a police car, unsure exactly when during the rush of the struggle she got it.

She could hear a few sentences being dutifully told over to her, nothing special, just the officer following protocol, "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you." Those were the last words she heard for a couple of hours before the severity of the situation dawned on her. It was in the cell when she finally broke down, despite trying so desperately to hold in her tears, not wanting to appear weak in front of the other people locked within the same cell.

Fortunately, none of them appeared to be the stereotypical inmates she imagined, all mean and hard-asses, instead they left her alone to sob softly on one of the benches hanging chained to the wall. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, which were pulled up to her forehead. Her face buried away from sight. Her swollen eyes arose from the darkness when she heard the clanking of the metal door and her last name being shouted by a strong male voice, "Fitch."

She looked into his eyes and found no pity, perhaps there was anger in them. It scared her that his anger could possibly be directed at her, that he could find a reason to hate her without even knowing the truth behind her actions. She couldn't help but feel guilt and ashamed for what she had done; she knew she didn't belong in a jail cell, that she shouldn't have taken out years of pent up aggression on a man who had coincidentally walked into her life the day everything became so much worse for her.

The officer motioned her out and stood aside as she slowly unfolded herself and walked towards him looking down at the floor. "Hands", he said. She looked up to give him a questioning look, unsure what he wanted, the way he wasn't talking in complete sentences. This time when she looked in his eyes she saw pity but only for half a second; perhaps he realized it was her first time in the system, and therefore what had happened wasn't really meant to happen. "Put your hands out in front of you." He clarified, slightly softer than he had spoken previously.

Emily's cheeks turned red with embarrassment as she lifted her arms dangling by her sides in his direction. Once again they were confined by the cold metal cuffs, the tightness was certainly not lacking, possibly cutting into her wrists a bit. "You can put them down now…" He said as he grabbed the top of her arm by her shoulder and led her down a hallway past security cameras, desks, and other officers and inmates.

He opened one of the doors that looked exactly the same as the numerous others they had passed on the way. The room was completely empty aside from a few cameras attached to the corners of the ceiling and a telephone chained to a metal table which was nailed to the floor. "You can make one short phone call. Anything you say on your phone call will be monitored by the station, don't do anything stupid. I'll leave you to it and return in a few minutes." He left the room right after his little speech.

She took a moment to take in a deep breath and noticed that her hands shook when she went up to the table to dial the numbers. She slowly brought the phone to her ear, begging herself not to cry. For the first time in her life she felt relief when she heard the all too familiar voice of her mother, "Hello, who's calling?"

"It's Emily, I'm at the police station."

"Sorry, I believe you have the wrong number." The phone line was quickly disconnected.

Emily knew she was only allowed one call, but something told her that the police were monitoring the conversations anyway so maybe they'd understand if she just tried one more time after the way that phone call went. Maybe Jenna misheard her, she thought… So Emily cleared her throat, in attempt to make herself sound more recognizable. She dialed the numbers a second time, slower in order to make sure she hit the correct ones. She was positive she dialed it correctly this time, but the phone went right to voice mail, Jenna didn't pick up.

"Hi you've missed, Jenna Fitch. Please leave a message after the tone, thank you. Beep…"

Emily lowered the phone, her hand shook harder than before, now, and she missed the base of the phone and hit the table. Her tears started to pour down her cheeks, hot trails dripped down onto her shirt. She sat slowly onto the floor and her breaths quickly turned from normal to an unhealthily fast pace. The officer from before rushed into the room just as she started wheezing, unable to control her breathing pace at all anymore. He tried to get her to slow down but instead her eyes rolled back into her head and everything faded to black.

When Emily woke up she was in a much smaller cell than the one she had originally been taken to when she first arrived. Oddly enough, she was lying on a metal cot very much like the one she slept on at home. The sheets here, however, were much cleaner, visibly whiter, and smelled like Lysol. Without thinking, she sat up and walked over to the metal door with a small window, too short to see out of out, even on her tip-toes. Her hands brushed along the smoothness of it, unable to find anywhere to hold or pull open. She stepped back a few feet and without a second thought she ran sideways into it, smashing her arm against the sturdy metal that didn't budge.

She immediately fell to the floor and cried while she clutched her arm that throbbed as pain shot up and down the length of it. "Back away from the door!" She heard shouted from the other side of the wall. She managed to move by giving herself a push with her feet off the wall, sliding as far away from it as her legs could stretch. A man in uniform ignored the way she screamed when he took her arm out of her grasp and cuffed her hands. She kicked and cried unrecognizable words as he picked her arm and carried her through a hallway of other metal doors that she didn't remember going through.

He held her tight and brought her through another door setting her down on the padded flooring in the corner of the room before leaving her alone and shutting the door, also padded on her side. She felt so isolated, as if she were trapped inside a mattress the way everything was covered in thick white padding that was stiff yet incomparably softer than metal. The metal cuffs were still wrapped around her wrists, blocking her from attempting to hold her arm and comforting herself. She ended up lying in the beetle position, with her face in the floor, as she cried at what little control she had over anything and the pain that she wasn't even allowed to try to soothe.

She had no idea what time it was when a different officer accompanied by a woman entered the room, securely shutting the door behind them. The man stood in front of the door while the woman crouched down beside her. Emily turned her head towards where she could see the woman's knees, looked up into green eyes pleadingly, yet struggling to stay open due to exhaustion.

"If you sit up and behave I can un-cuff you and care for that arm of yours. But, if you give me any problems, any at all, this man behind me has a tazer, which will most definitely feel a hell of a lot worse anywhere, than that arm of yours feels right now. Understood?"

Emily's whimper was accepted as a yes as she slowly eased herself up with the help of the woman's hands on her shoulders. The small girl didn't even notice as the door was quickly opened and shut again to pass in a small case which was given to the woman. She let out a small cry when the lady un-cuffed her wrists, now visibly red with the skin broken into and bleeding from the way she had squirmed and rubbed them raw when she fought the officers before.

"We'll patch those up too…" The woman sighed, noticing how Emily flinched when she bent them. She took Emily's wounded arm and pulled it straight gently, then slowly lifted up the sleeve of the shirt Emily was wearing. "Can you lift your arm above your head?"

Emily bit her lip and shook her head, no.

"Right then, I'm going to have to cut it off." The nurse sighed sadly when the fragile girl looked up to the male standing in front of the door, shyly. "Sorry but he has to stay… and he's not allowed to turn around; I would've requested a female officer but there weren't any available." The woman reached into her case and pulled out a scissors, carefully under the watch of the guard as she cut away Emily's shirt and put the scissors back away, out of the inmate's reach.

"You did a pretty damn good job." She muttered looking at Emily's arm, already bruising badly and swelling up. Emily looked down at her ribs and remembered the bruises from her mother, as well as the scars she knows are on her back. The nurse scanned her over, "They only reported a black eye, not… this." A single tear fell down Emily's face as the woman observed the wounds Emily had tried to keep hidden for so long; only three people had known about them; Jenna, herself, and the magician who only just found out today… now her secret was going to be under inspection of this woman who would possibly tell everyone, something Emily just couldn't handle.

Despite the pain in her arm Emily found the strength to move it and used her other arm so they were both blocking the woman's view of the various 'unreported' bruises. The nurse looked up at Emily, "I'm sorry but I'm going to have to look at those… I'll have to treat them and report them to the office." The woman gently tried to remove Emily's arms, but Emily was going to put up a fight if she had to.

"Please, don't make me." She whispered through her cries.

The woman sighed and gave the officer a look only the two of them could understand. She stood up and gave him the case. Emily believed that they were both going to leave her alone like she wished. Instead when the guard opened the door, taking the case with him, he shut it behind him, locking her and the nurse inside. "Wha-? I thought you…" Emily stuttered, confused.

The woman sat down beside the scared looking Emily who slowly inched away until her back collided with the padded wall. "My name is Mrs. Sheffer, Emily. I'm not only a nurse, but a social worker and psychologist as well. I've seen many inmates over the course of my career and I've seen many girls just like you." She looks Emily up and down, and Emily knows she's referring to the bruises. "You and I both know that those didn't come from your fight today. We also both know that your wrists were already cut up and likely in the process of healing before those handcuffs were put on you. And judging by the scars on your back, that are definitely out of your own arms reach and the way that some are fresh and some look to be very old, possibly a by few years, I'm guessing you've been having some problems for a very long time."

"I fight at school." Emily answered automatically, having prepared a statement long ago for her own 'protection.'

"Emily, working for the police station means I have access to the records of the inmates before I see them. I've already seen your grades, and the way you have A's in every course I have high reason to doubt that statement."

"I can still be smart and fight."

"That's very true. But I don't think that's the case. Not your case."

"Why not?"

"The teacher's notes on your report cards express your tendency to avoid other students, that you're very much a loner. So either you're very good at hiding your 'fights', considering to fight other people are necessary to be involved… or… you are a victim with a false and twisted sense of loyalty towards the reality of how this happened to you… or should I say, towards who did this to you?"

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Emily, if you tell me, I can help you."

"Why would you want to help me? You couldn't possibly get anything out of helping me. What would be the point? I don't have much money." (This was a lie, Emily did have a bit of money, but there was no way in hell she was going to give up her 'escape plan' so easily.)

"I don't want your money; I just want to make the world a better place, I want to help you."

"You can't."

"I can help you… but, I need your help to do it."

"That sounds like a line right out of a movie."

"I imagine it's in several movies, regardless, it's true. You can either help me, help you, or you can be another one of the girls who undeservedly get thrown around the system while the real criminals are let off the hook."

"I…"

DUN DUN DUN. That was a bloody cruel cliffhanger. So, what do you think Em's is going to do? Hmm? Help herself or continue to be a victim? I imagine it's very hard to break out of that victim routine, so who knows…

Still have yet to find out where Naomi comes in…

Hope you like this… review please?

(In other news, I am inwardly scolding myself for not writing for some of my other stories… Alas I am free writer, writing what I'm in the mood for. By the way, the motivation isn't in telling me to update, the motivation comes when you tell me you enjoy a particular story. So yelling at me unfortunately isn't as successful as you'd probably like it to be…)

Furthermore, I honestly have no real idea of how the 'system' works, I'm just inferring my writing from the various jail reality shows I've watched… (As well as making what I want, happen…)

Also, did my best to try and keep it in one tense. May have missed a few bits… I think past is easiest, however sometimes I get a little caught up writing in the present moment as if I were standing in the room with them as it's happening…

LOL. one more thing. At one point Emily says, "Oh yes you do." Well, imagine her saying it in the same cold scary tone that Jenna uses when she tells Naomi to stay away from Emily. (I think it's in Katie and Emily's episode… of their first series…) (to which Naomi answers: "I'm not gay…") (hella yes. you are.) (I happen to be able to quote like the entire first series, (second not as much) for like any situation. It's incredibly amusing.)

SORRY so many author notes. I'm in New York on my vacation right now and I'm trying to get as much writing done as possible before I return and have to get busy again…. (I'd upload this right after I wrote it but I have no access to wifi until I'm back home… so you're stuck waiting…)

K done now. I'd love some reviews though, in case you had forgotten already… hehe.