Pov Fey

"Do I have to?" I asked from inside the bathroom with my eyes squeezed shut tightly.

Lorenzo laughed lightly on the other side of the door, "Yes. How else are you going to start to love yourself if you don't look at yourself?" he asked, slightly amused.

"I really don't want to. What if we just went to dinner early and got you some cake?" I asked, trying to tempt him.

He groaned, "I'll have cake no matter what later. Not like I can't ask a house elf," he laughed, "Don't make me come in there, Fey. Just a few minutes, that was the deal."

I groaned.
He was right. I promised I would try.

I rolled my head back and forth on my neck, trying to hype myself up. You can do this, I thought.

I stepped in front of the mirror behind the door and let my fluffy protective bathrobe fall.

There I was. I let my eyes rake over my body, focusing first on my toes.

"What am I even supposed to do now?" I grumbled, asking Lorenzo for help.

"Try to find something you like," he suggested, "Talk with me about it."

I was silent at first.

It's really weird to stare at yourself naked in the mirror.

Who does that?

"Well, I guess I have pretty polish on my toes," I told him.

"Really?" he mused, "What color?"

I held my foot out and wiggled my toes, smiling, "It's sparkly and black."

"Black? I would have taken you for more of a red or a purple kind of girl, definitely not black."

"What's wrong with black? I really like it, especially with the sparkles that make it shiny."

He laughed, "I suppose the sparkles make it all the more interesting."

I nodded as if he could see me and blushed, "It really does."

"Tell me something else, Fey," he requested.

I let my eyes wander up my legs. They were really short, her thighs were wide, and her hips had stretch marks. Tears burned, but she held them back.

"I don't know if I can do this…"

"Tell me what you're looking at…"

"My legs and my hips…"

"Oh, darling. Tell me what you believe is wrong."

I took a deep breath, "They're really short…"

"You can't control how tall you are. Unfortunately, we are all stuck with that, but if it helps, I love that you're short."

I scoffed, crossing my arms. Who was he kidding?

"Hey now! You can't call me a liar; now let me explain.

I listened, knowing he was right. I couldn't tell him he didn't like what he liked. I had to trust him.

"I love that you're shorter because when I stand before you, it lets me rest my hands on your hips and cheek on the top of your head."

I sighed softly, "That is nice. I do like it when you do that…"

"So, what do you like about your legs?" he asked.

"I like that my legs make me a good height to hug you," I replied to his question.

Lorenzo laughed, "A perfect height, darling. Don't sell yourself too short."

"Was that a joke at my expense?"

"Only if you thought it was funny."

I laughed, feeling lighter with him here.

My eyes trailed up, and I tried to apply his positivity through my own eyes.

"I like my hips because they don't bruise when I accidentally walk into things."

"Good job, love, keep going."

I looked over my belly and skipped to my waist, "I like my waist because it feels nice when you hold me there."

"Good to know. I like holding you there…"

"I like my breasts because they're…"

"They'll be a wonderful pillow when we nap later," he told me through the door, his voice low and rough.

I blushed, picking up my clothes on the counter and slipping them on. There was no way I could do any more of this today. He was driving me crazy with his comments.

I pulled the door open, and he looked at me surprised, "Done already," he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

I nodded, "I've been in there ten minutes... Are you ready for dinner?"

Lorenzo took my hand and tugged me from my dorm. His hand squeezed mine as he led me through the common room and down to the Great Hall. At our usual corner, the others were eating already, but they had saved us each a seat at the end.

Theo eyed us, his gaze dropping to our hands that were still entwined before saying hello and returning to his food.

Conversely, Mattheo commented on my lack of a school robe and whistled loud enough to make heads turn.

I felt my cheeks reddened, and I shushed him, "Stop it."

"Come on now, Fey. How can I resist when you walk in and show off all of your wonderful assets? You look beautiful, by the way," he winked and wiggled his brows before turning back to Draco.

Lorenzo, who had already filled his plate, squeezed my hand under the table and grinned, 'I told you so,' he mouthed at me.

I blushed deeper and filled my plate with a few things I knew I could eat. When I was finished, Lorenzo frowned, added a few more items to my plate, and shoved it toward me.

I nodded, knowing that I needed to eat more than I had been.

Practically starving myself over the last few weeks, I had given myself headaches, stomach pains, and a lot worse without the one side effect I had wanted: weight loss.

So, instead, I asked Lorenzo for even more help.

I asked him to help me eat a bit more healthy. He noticed that I hadn't been eating nearly enough and had made it his mission to get enough food in me during every meal without overloading me.

I was already feeling better, and asking for help wasn't so bad either.

It helped that Lorenzo didn't make me feel bad for asking. In fact, he insisted on it and often asked if I needed anything.

When I tried to tell him no, he would get this determined look in his eyes that told me he meant business, and after a moment of squirming, I would cave. He helped me with the smallest things, like the homework I had accumulated today, being sick, and coming up with ideas to put in my journal.

He never made me feel guilty; for once, I wasn't feeling like a burden. I felt good.

Around the Slytherin table, others were chatting and whispering. I tried to hear what they were saying but only heard brief snippets of their conversations.

Most of it seemed to be nonsense, "He's coming…", "...Bulgaria…" and "...vacation…" None of it had anything to do with me, so I relaxed.

Maybe it was possible that my mind was playing tricks on me. Turning everything against myself in some fucked up way. I smiled and returned to my plate of potatoes when another bit floated to me, "...Rafe Flint…"

My hand froze halfway to my mouth, and my stomach dropped to the floor. The pieces started to fit together, and conversations surrounded me, sending me more information.

It confirmed my worst fear. Rafe Flint was coming back to Hogwarts from vacation in Bulgaria with his family.

I didn't know when he was due to arrive, but I was a sitting duck waiting to find out. He could be back any moment, and I could do nothing about it.

My eyes flickered to Lorenzo, and I thought about asking him for help. He had been great with everything else, and I wondered if he would also be willing to help me with this.

As if noticing my gaze, he looked up at me from across the table and smiled as he reached for the chocolate cake.

When I didn't smile back, he frowned cocking his head to the side, "Are you alright, Fey?"

I shook my head, "I- I'm not sure," I told him honestly.

He frowned at that, but before he could say anything else, my words had drawn the attention of Blaise and Theo.

They reached for my hands under the table and drew my gaze to where they sat on either side of me.

Blaise looked at me curiously, "What's wrong?"

"It's something I heard it's frightened me…" I admitted to them, my voice growing quieter.

"What is it? Are people saying things? We'll handle it if they are," Theo told her, threats blazing behind his eyes, making me shiver, but not in fear.

I shook my head, "I just heard them talking about Rafe Flint…" I told them, pausing to breathe deeply, "He… oh god…" I struggled to find the words to tell them as terrible memories flashed before my eyes from my first year at Hogwarts.

The blood, the threats, and the constant harassment.

It all flooded back to the forefront of my mind, and I felt dizzy, weak, and terrified. The Flint family had stepped in four years ago and used everything from their money to their power and connections to sweep it all under the rug, and when I had threatened to tell my family and the school, they had threatened in return to have my parents fired from their jobs.

It may have seemed far-fetched, but it was possible. Rafe Flint was related to Marcus Flint, also the biggest arse hole ever to walk the planet, whose parents were heads of the offices where my parents worked. They held the power to take their jobs and destroy my family's only means of support.

My family wasn't wealthy. They didn't have a large enough vault to support them if anything like that happened, so I shut my mouth. They paid for my medical bills and took Rafe away after the second year when he did it again to another girl, a Hufflepuff. She wasn't so lucky. She lived but was forced to leave Hogwarts, and I don't even know where she ended up.

But now he was coming back.

He would be walking the halls, and my entire body screamed to run and hide.

"Fey?"

I couldn't speak. My throat was tight, and my head was pounding inside my skull. My lungs felt like collapsing, and my vision went in and out.

I was having a panic attack.

"Fuck," Theo whispered, "We need to get her out of her."

Blaise nodded and tugged me from where I sat. My legs wobbled and shook, but he threw an arm around me and hauled me from the Great Hall with Lorenzo on my other side.

We moved quickly; before I knew it, we were down in the dungeons. They were tugging me inside our common room and helping me to sit in a chair tucked in one of the far corners of the room, not easily seen unless you were looking for it.

"Tell us what's going on," Lorenzo said, kneeling before me. He held my hands as I placed my head between my knees.

His cheek rested on top of my hair, and he waited with an impatient Theo and Blaise on guard, surrounding us with their threatening energy and a feeling of safety.

"When I was a first-year…" my voice hitched in my throat as tears built in my eyes, "I was raped by Rafe Flint."

The world stood still as they stopped breathing, their anger clouding the room, replacing the oxygen I breathed until I was suffocating in it.