The rest of the school year passed by painfully slowly for Katie Bell. Every class, every meal, every lonely night was highlighted by a new heightening of her senses that Katie could only imagine must be what they call "heartbreak".

Fred worked late. Sometimes one day would bleed directly into another, and George would come downstairs in the morning only to find Fred sitting at his desk in the same clothes he had worn the night before.

Angelina and Alicia cried for her. That was all they could do. They knew that this misery Katie felt, this inhuman pain, pulled her off the face of the Earth, took her to levels where even her best friends could not touch her.

George had always been able to read Fred's mind, and it worked both ways. But even he could not fathom the pain Fred held inside, and this inability to understand distanced them, and no matter how hard George pushed, he could not reach his brother.

Christmas break was Katie's only lifeline, the source of hope she desperately clung to. With nowhere to go, she would be headed to the Burrow, the same as any other year. She prayed that she would be able to make up for her mistake.

Fred wondered how he could have done this to her. He had hurt her so much more than just leaving her, and it seemed he would never stop. He didn't deserve her, and so he stayed away.

On the first day of Christmas holiday, Katie was dead to the world. She walked slowly, purposefully, ate nothing, and gracefully avoided meeting anyone's eye. She boarded the train carefully, weak, an old woman despite her youth. Lack of food and sleep played its role, but you didn't have to be a healer to know that, in all honestly, it was lack of hope that did it.

Fred couldn't bring himself to accompany his parents to the train station, despite everyone's insistence. Some shrugged and said he was still angry, others said it was because without her, he didn't have the energy to walk, but in all honesty, he was punishing himself, keeping her just out of reach so that he might feel the pain he had inflicted upon her.

"Molly."

The word came out so quietly it could have been the wind, and it brought tears to Molly Weasley's eyes. As she looked at Katie, this young woman who had once been so beautiful, glowing even, but who was withering away before her very eyes, Molly was afraid even to hug her, fearful that she would break.

But hug her she did, and once she had her in her arms, a girl she had always looked at as a second daughter, Molly never wanted to let Katie go.

"Bill, dear, grab Katie's trunk, won't you?" Molly said, smoothing Katie's hair as she held her, walking as they embraced, as if she were trying to protect Katie from whatever horrors that were just beyond her own reach.

"Katie and Harry are here!" Molly called to the occupants of Number 12 Grimmauld Place once they were safely inside the doorway. Everyone rushed to greet Harry, praising him for his strange rescue of Mr. Weasley, while Katie wordlessly slunk out of the way of all the chatter.

"He's upstairs."

Katie screamed very unceremoniously as the Weasley twin whom had not stolen her heart seemingly appeared from nowhere. His eyes widened in shock, obviously not having intended to scare her, and he reached out his arms reflexively, as if fearful that she would collapse before his very eyes. It seemed, Katie thought bitterly, that everyone had that fear lately.

The old Katie, the one who laughed and smiled and made jokes, would have faked ignorance. "Who?" she would have asked. Not this Katie. This Katie just stared blankly into the face that was nearly identical to but seemed so far from the one she wanted so desperately to see.

"He misses you so much, Katie." George moved as if to touch her face, hug her maybe, but Katie sidestepped him so quickly but nonchalantly that it was hard to tell she had moved at all.

"I'm sorry," George said, looking wounded. "I just…"

"I know." They were the first words she had spoken in days, and they tasted strange on her tongue. Lies taste foul, bitter, but the truth is a much worse flavor, sickeningly sweet, it burns the tip of your tongue and bubbles in your throat until you wish you could take it back.

She did know. She understood, really and truly she did, that all anybody wanted was to help her, but she couldn't allow it. She was Katherine Elizabeth Bell, and she did not need to be fixed, because she was unbreakable. She was, because she made herself that way. A heart that has been broken many times must eventually harden so thickly that it scarcely even retains it's shape anymore.

But even the thickest of metals will melt at some temperature, and Katie's chest had never felt so warm as it did when she saw him there, descending the stairs without looking in her direction, led by some unseen force and blind to the world around him.

For the first time in far too long, Katie longed to reach out. She wished she were strong enough to hold out her arms, touch his face, ask him to hold her, because suddenly she didn't feel like she could stand.

Her mouth fell open, but no sound would come out, and when-after what deemed like an eternity-he finally noticed her, his mouth opened too, and while they both stood, dumbfounded, mouths agape, staring into each other's eyes, neither of them noticed George quietly slip from the room.

"I missed you," Katie finally uttered, breathlessly. She felt tears well up behind her eyes, trying hard to break the surface she had carefully sealed shut.

"I…me too."

Neither of them made a move to breach the infinite space keeping them apart, though both of them hated having it there.

"I love you."

Neither could be sure who said it first, but once it was neither cared. The single word acted like a magnet that drew them together, and right as their hands intertwined and their tears mixed as their faces pressed together, the sounds could be heard from outside-though neither was paying attention-of raindrops gently beating against the roof and running down the windowpanes.

AN: Wow, sorry about the looooooong wait you guys! Hope this chapter makes up for it! More soon! I promise! Please review!