A/N: Okay, more angst and foul language. But after this chapter, it picks up again, I swear.

It hurt like hell in the morning. I could barely breathe, and spread across my ribs was a huge red-purple bruise. I swore and dressed, very, very carefully, then went down to breakfast, mincing down the stairs and taking the long route so that I didn't have to duck through any secret passages.

I was down to breakfast hours early, so I sat alone, the only person in the entire hall, drinking tea and wondering whether I should go to the hospital wing or not. I had Quidditch practice again that night, true enough, but I could pretend that I damaged myself on the way down to the pitch, somehow.

Suddenly, someone threw themselves down next to me with enough force to knock me sideways. My ribs flared and I swore, loudly. I turned to see who it was, biting back tears of pain.

Malfoy, of course. He looked concerned and very, very angry.

'Malfoy, fuck off.' I said, holding my side as the pain subsided.

'I will do no such thing,' he said. 'You're hurt, again. It isn't a coincidence. There are times when not telling is brave, or honourable. This is not one of those times. This is stupid and ridiculous and masochistic.'

I hesitated. 'Malfoy, you're being…weird, about this.'

He reached out and took the hem of my shirt. For some reason, I didn't stop him as he pulled it up a few inches and looked at my ribs. He gently touched my bruise, his fingers cool against my swollen, hot skin. He let my shirt drop again and met my eyes with his flat grey ones. He held out his hand.

'Come on. Go to the hospital wing; I'll say I did it.'

'But you didn't.'

'Doesn't matter.' I took his outstretched hand, instinctively. He helped me to my feet, and I let his hand go.

We walked up to the hospital wing side by side, slowly and silently. I felt strange; it all felt surreal, dreamy, like that twilight time between waking and sleeping.

I went into the hospital wing, feeling kind of muzzy, Malfoy only a step behind me.

'I feel kind of dizzy. I think I'm going to sit down,' I said, and sat carefully on one of the beds. It wasn't the sort of dizzy you get when you're about to pass out, it's the sort of dizzy you get when you're half asleep but don't want to stop talking to someone.

I was dimly aware of Malfoy explaining something to Madame Pomfrey, something about arguing and falling and banisters, but I wasn't really listening. I was aware of Madame Pomfrey coming over and pulling up my shirt with her freezing cold hands and poking at my side so that it really hurt. 'Ouch.' I said, distantly.

'Ouch, indeed!' she huffed. She went to her potions store, muttering about incautious students falling into banister ends. Oh, I thought. So that's how he explained it.

She poured out a measure of clear liquid and I drank it, then she laid her wand on top of my bruise and muttered something.

I had had bones healed by magic before, but never ribs. It felt kind of creepy, like cracking your knuckles times a million as everything knit together, then settled. The matron made me drink another potion and then let me go, telling me to be more careful. The second potion cleared my head, somewhat, and I left, closing the door neatly behind me.

Malfoy was in the hallway, leaning up against the wall.

'You okay?' he asked.

'Fine. You?'

'All right.'

We walked back down to the Great Hall together and sat at our respective tables, backs towards each other, not saying a word, each in their own thoughts. The hall slowly filled up around us, and their chatter filled the silence, but somewhere deep inside, I saved that dreamy silence. I can pull it out now, when times get hard and I just need to take a deep breath and remember that somebody cares.

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That day passed, better than the one before but not particularly brilliant. I know I went to classes, but I can't think what I learned. I wrote a letter to my mother, reporting that everything was great.

Which I wasn't actually sure was so much of a lie. Sure, my boyfriend kept freaking out and hitting me and I was too fucking scared to dump him, but my grades were good. My cousin/best friend was pining after a straight guy, but I'm Head Girl. And I may or may not be insanely, crazily, spinning-out-of-control-edly confused about Scorpius Malfoy, but I'm the best Keeper that Ravenclaw has seen in years.

My life blows.

After classes, I holed myself up in the library to study, in my favourite dark corner. At one point, someone wandered in, looking for a book. When I glanced up from my Arithmancy report, I saw that it was Malfoy.

'Hello, Mr. Malfoy,' I said. He turned, his book in hand. He tipped an imaginary hat at me.

'Good day, Ms. Weasley.' And then he was gone. I turned back to my homework, completely unperturbed.

I went to dinner and I suppose I ate, but I was still in a strange sort of fog. It almost felt like a transition, of sorts, like a mental version of a train tunnel, limiting your vision while taking you forwards. I just hoped that the light at the end of the tunnel was smiling at me.

I went through Quidditch practice in that haze, by now completely used to Chase's extra sweetness after an explosion, how he kissed me more and held my hand and called me pet names and brought me flowers. It still didn't make up for breaking my ribs.

After Quidditch, Chase and I began to trudge back up the hill towards the castle. He held my hand, and we chatted about Quidditch and our classes.

Suddenly, I stopped dead. He didn't realize at first, and then turned as I yanked my hand from his.

'What is it, doll?'

'Chase?' I said dreamily.

'Yeah?'

'You're an asshole. What kind of person does that to their girlfriend? What kind of sick, twisted person could beat on another person, for nothing?' My voice was still calm and level, saying these things matter-of-factly. 'What kind of coward beats on a girl who is smaller than him?'

His face twisted angrily and he balled his hands into fists as I spoke. 'I told you before. Don't call me coward!'

'But you are. You're nothing but a coward. You're just an overgrown baby.' I taunted.

He swung, like I knew he would, but I was ready for it. I ducked and ran at him, ramming my shoulder into his belly, knocking him to the ground. He got up, and I kicked him in the balls (which is low, but he deserved it), so he fell down again.

Now, I could feel my emotions again; my fear of him, and the way it had hurt, and the sadness, too, that someone could be that bad. I kicked him in the stomach again as he tried to get up, oblivious to the world as I knelt on his chest and hit him. I just let it go, just drove my fists into him again and again and again, until someone pulled me off of him. I didn't struggle, accepting that I'd been stopped.

Before I'd felt clouded, crowded out by my emotions. Now I just felt empty. I stared down at Chase, where he lay groaning in the dirt, and then I looked up at the person who had pulled me off of Chase, the person who still had me by the shoulders in case I tried to pull something crazy.

'How can someone who seems so good be so bad?'

He shrugged. 'Nature of the universe, I s'pose.'

I thought about this for a moment, then nodded. I looked back up at him. 'What're you doing here, anyways?'

'Rescuing you.'

'From what?'

He shrugged again. 'Yourself, I s'pose.' He looked down at Chase, lying on the ground, and shook his head. Then, Scorpius Malfoy put his arm around my shoulders and turned me away. Together, we walked back to the castle.

I lay in bed later that night, thinking about all that had happened in the last couple of months. It had been a whirlwind of a time, that was for sure, and I was still extremely confused.

Please review!

Okay, so this is the last full chapter I have written right now. I have part of the next one done, and I'll finish it sometime this week, but almost all my time is being focussed on work and my novel right now, so I don't have much time to work on this.

But I will get the next one up this week. I don't want to leave you will all this angst for a month while I finish the novel.

And in your reviews, would you mind telling me if you'd read a book called 'Discovering Persephone'?

Ta, Elle