Trigger Warning

Tansy sat cross-legged on her four-poster bed watching the sun sinking behind the mountains beyond the lake. A golden glow lit up the castle grounds, glittering off the surface of the water in a sunlit path, as straight as if it had been laid by a ruler. Tansy wondered how it would feel to step onto it and walk up and away into the sky.

Hope gurgled and Tansy looked down at her – the baby was lying on the bed in front of her. She was kicking her legs happily and grasping at the air with her tiny starfish hands as she tried to focus on the huge teddy bear beside her.

'Auntie Hermione gave you that,' Tansy said quietly, stroking her daughter's face with a forefinger. Hope immediately turned her head towards the finger, her mouth opening and closing like a baby bird's, looking for milk. 'Are you hungry again?' Tansy asked softly, letting her daughter catch her finger in her mouth. As Hope sucked energetically on the finger, Tansy glanced at the bedside table. The day had felt endless but it was actually only seven o'clock in the evening and there was still another hour before Hope was due a feed.

'Tansy?' Tansy looked over to the door and saw that Minerva had appeared in the open doorway. She was watching Tansy interacting with her daughter with a look of happiness on her face. 'I'm going next door to my office. I have a meeting with Professor Snape. Will you be alright here for a bit? I won't be long.' Tansy nodded and glanced dispassionately at the huge pile of textbooks on the desk; she didn't think that she had enough brain power to start tackling her homework tonight. At any rate, she wasn't even prepared to try while Hope was awake. Tansy felt as though she'd missed enough of her daughter's day already.

'Mr Weasley should be here soon. He knows the password and I told him to let himself in.' Minerva said, in a low voice. Tansy felt herself paling slightly and a sudden twinge of her earlier panic twisted inside her chest. Minerva was an expert at reading Tansy's facial expressions. However, where Fred Weasley was concerned, she always chose to ignore them. She looked levelly at the young witch. 'He won't stay long, Tansy. He cares about you a lot and he just wants to see how the first day back went.' Minerva sighed, as if she had just remembered what had happened during Potions class.

When she had left, Tansy looked back at her daughter and tried to summon her earlier feeling of peace. The baby seemed to be fascinated by her mother's wild black curls and she grasped at the hair with tiny, uncoordinated hands. She seemed to like it when Tansy leaned forwards and flicked the soft curls over her face and they sat together in a contented silence for several minutes. Then, Hope's tiny face crumpled slightly and she whimpered and Tansy realised that she wasn't going to get away with making her daughter wait another hour for her milk.

'Come on then, let's get you a bottle.' Tansy swung her legs off the bed and stood up carefully. Then she picked up Hope and laid her gently over her shoulder. The baby wriggled and whimpered again, her fists tangling in Tansy's hair. One handed, Tansy sorted out Hope's feed and then sank down on the sofa, arranging the baby on a pillow so that she was at the correct angle to drink.

'There you go.' Hope started sucking hungrily at the bottle. Tansy stared down at her, amazed at how perfect she was. 'I love…'

The door of the apartment opened with a creak and Tansy jerked involuntarily, swinging round as Fred walked into the room. The bottle slipped out of Hope's mouth, the warm milk splattering all over her face and the pillow, and she immediately began to cry.

'Hey, it's okay little one.' Fred said, walking over to where Tansy was sitting and sinking down in the armchair opposite her. Tansy tried to get the bottle back into Hope's mouth but she was too tense and the baby was crying too hard. 'Not having a good day, eh?' Fred asked, his face concerned. Tansy glanced up at him, winced, and looked back down at her daughter's furious face.

'Mum told me what happened in Potions. I'm sorry Tan.' Tansy shrugged and pushed the bottle gently into Hope's open mouth, praying that she'd take it and start drinking peacefully again. The baby immediately spat it out.

Just take it, please just take it. Tansy silently begged her daughter, trying again. Hope's face was bright red and screwed up. Even before she rejected the bottle again, Tansy could tell that it was impossible; she was too tense, too wound up and Hope was too angry. She wished that Fred would leave so that they could both calm down. Still refusing to look at him, she placed the bottle on the side table and picked the baby up and laid her over her shoulder. Hope's cries subsided into whimpers as Tansy rubbed her back in small circles.

There… that's better. Tansy tried to say the words out loud but they caught in her throat and made her choke.

'Tansy? I know it's been a hard day for you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.' Silence greeted Fred's words. Tansy automatically continued rubbing Hope's back as the baby grumbled disconsolately into her hair.

'Tansy?' Fred asked questioningly. Then he changed tact. 'I've been working in the shop with Lee. I think we should be ready to reopen by the end of the month. I…' His voice cracked slightly and Tansy could tell that he was fighting tears. She stared determinatedly at the red and gold patterned carpet, her inner anxiety growing. 'I'm just finding it so hard without him, Tansy. It's so hard doing it on my own. I miss him so much.'

Fog was filling Tansy's mind at an alarming rate. George's face swam in front of her eyes; George's face, alight with anticipation as he forced himself on her. Then, the light went out of his eyes. The pressure of his body on hers became a dead weight, pinning her to the floor. A trickle of blood ran out of his ear and down his neck. Her mind was playing tricks on her; she could no longer tell true memory from one of her many nightmares. She fought against the memory, pushing it down and sealing it in a dark corner of her mind. With a gargantuan effort she pulled herself back to the present.

'Tansy, please will you say something?' Confused, Tansy used her free hand to rub violently at her eyes and she shook her head, trying to recentre herself. She placed the baby down on the empty seat beside her because she could feel herself starting to tremble and she was afraid she would accidentally hurt her daughter. 'Tansy? Please? Do you even care?' Tansy shook her head again, only dimly aware of Fred's continued questioning.

'Tansy? Why…?!' Fred's sadness had turned to anger and it was directed at her. Like a recoiled elastic band, Tansy snapped back into herself as the waves of his emotion broke over her head. Fear and adrenaline swept through her causing every muscle in her body to tense.

'Do you…? What have I done? It's like you don't even care about me at all anymore! It's not like I'm asking for the moon, Tansy! Just a little sympathy and understanding but that's beyond you isn't it? We could help each other through this! You aren't the only one who's hurting!' He stood up, slamming his fist into the arm of the chair. Then he advanced on her his fists clenched, his whole body trembling with fury. 'We were partners Tansy! We mended once before and I thought we could get through it this time too but now I'm starting to think this is the end! You won't speak to me! You won't even look at me! What did I do?'

Tansy forced herself to raise her eyes to his face as he towered over her and stared at him blankly.

It's what I did. It's not you at all.

The door of the apartment flew open and Minerva McGonagall rushed into the room, closely followed by Severus Snape.

'Mr Weasley! What are you doing?'

'Calm down, Mr Weasley! Come away from Tansy!'

Ignoring the two Professors, Fred stared down into Tansy's blank eyes.

'I only want to help you!' Tears had started flowing freely down his face. 'Please let me help you! Why can't you speak to me? Why can't you look at me?'

'That's enough, Fred, come away now.' Minerva stepped forward and ushered him out of the room. Tansy's eyes remained fixed to the place where he had been standing. His words still reverberated around her head.

'Miss Laverstock?' Severus Snape stepped into her line of view. 'Miss Laverstock? Are you okay?' Tansy stared blankly at him for several seconds. Then she dropped her eyes to her trembling hands and nodded. To her embarrassment she realised her pajama bottoms were soaking wet although she had no recollection of loosing control of herself during Fred's outburst.

'Tansy, Fred's sorry about what he said. He didn't mean it. He's under a huge amount of strain at the moment.' Minerva had returned and she now took Fred's vacated chair in front of Tansy.

'It's true…' Both the Professors had to lean in to hear Tansy's almost inaudible whisper. 'What he said was true. I can't speak to him. I can't look at him.' A feeling of filthy shame was starting to creep over her. She felt tainted with the knowledge of what she had done and the events that had provoked her crazed behaviour. She stood up suddenly, taking both Minerva and Severus by surprise. 'I… I need a shower.' Without looking back, Tansy stumbled out of the room.

Slamming the bathroom door behind her, she pulled off her clothes with a desperate urgency. Then she climbed into the shower, hitting blindly at the on button with her first. The shock of the icy water jolted her out of the fog and for several seconds she felt in control of herself. Then, as the water warmed, she felt the fog trickling back through her mind. Fred's words reverberated around her head. George's face, alight with a sick anticipation swam in front of her eyes. She remembered how he had pinned her beneath him and shoved her legs apart with his knee and forced himself into her. Tansy retched and fell to her hands and knees, the warm water still flowing over her back. She remembered the insane, unstoppable anger that had bubbled through her as she pushed him off her and banged his head against the floor. She remembered the fiery need to hurt him as he had hurt her and the way that she continued to punish him even when the life had left his body an empty shell. She fought harder to repress the memory, her mind pushing it down and wrapping it again and again with layers of darkness until she couldn't see or feel it any longer. The darkness started expanding through the rest of her head, seeping through her thoughts and overtaking her mind.

Tansy struggled to her feet again, looking around for anything that would help her to fight the darkness. The full-length mirror on the back of the door was fogged with steam. An electric burst of energy suddenly flowed through her and she gasped throwing her palm out towards her distorted reflection. With a loud crack, the mirror shattered. Tansy dragged herself out of the bath, but, as she stepped onto the floor, she slipped on the wet tiles, crashing down among the splintered glass.

The pain the followed came as a relief.

Minerva McGonagall's POV

The two Professors looked at each other in silence. Then, still without saying a word Severus flicked his wand at the sofa cushion where Tansy had been sat. It immediately rose into the air, stripped itself of it's cover and then both cushion and cover vanished into thin air. Minerva knew that he'd sent them directly to the castle laundry.

Minerva stood up, crossed over to the sofa and picked up Hope and the baby bottle. Then she returned to the armchair and, with half of her mind focused on the baby in her arms, and the other half fixated on the young woman who had just exited the room, she started to feed Hope rather haphazardly. When Hope finally turned her head away, refusing the bottle, Minerva lifted her up onto her shoulder for winding. As she rubbed the baby's back in gentle, rhythmical circles, Minerva glanced at Severus. He was still standing in the exact same position, staring silently at her.

'That was extremely distressing, Minerva,' he finally said, his black eyes flashing at her. 'I know that Mr Weasley has lost his twin and is under an immense amount of strain but Miss Laverstock is still extremely unwell and an outburst like that will do her more harm than good and what he did terrified her to the point of…' He gestured to the bare sofa.

Minerva nodded – she was torn between rage and pity and the two emotions warred through her mind as she thought of Fred Weasley's outburst.

'Fred's aware that losing control is probably the least helpful thing under the circumstances.' Minerva said, getting up and gently laying the baby in the Moses basket by the sofa. She winced as she remembered Fred's anguish as she escorted him out of the room. Then she sighed. 'Just when we'd finally made some sort of positive progress with Tansy too…' She suddenly felt every one of her many years. 'I'm going to see if she's okay, Severus.' She glanced quickly at the baby, pleased to see that she was staring fixedly at the dancing dust-motes lit up by the light of the setting sun. Then she made her way as quickly as her creaking knees would allow her over to Tansy's bedroom.

Nearly twenty minutes had passed since Tansy had left the room but Minerva could hear that the water of the shower was still running as she crossed over to the bathroom door. She knocked quietly once.

'Tansy? Are you okay in there? You've been a long time.' There was no answer and the shower continued to run. Minerva felt the first prickling of alarm. 'Tansy?' Minerva pushed gently at the door, then, even more alarmed at finding it locked, she pulled out her wand.

'Alohomora!' A wall of steam hit her as the bathroom door swung open and her glasses immediately fogged over. Minerva cast a nonverbal spell to wipe them clean and stared into the room. Her heart leapt into her mouth as she took in the scene in front of her; shards of glass littered the floor. Tansy, naked and still wet form the shower, was curled up in the middle of the glass, a pool of blood and water rapidly spreading out across the floor away from her.

'Tansy!' Minerva approached her quickly and placed a hand on the girl's shaking shoulder. 'I'm here now. What have you done?' She looked down at the girl's naked body but there was too much blood to make out the nature of her injuries. 'Severus!'

Severus entered at a run, swore loudly and immediately used his wand to sweep the shards of glass into the corner of the room. Then he dropped to his knees beside Tansy.

'Miss Laverstock, what have you done?' He repeated Minerva's question.

The girl looked up at him in bewildered confusion. She seemed to be barely aware of the situation; too far gone even to feel embarrassed by her nakedness. Minerva felt it for her and quickly wrapped a towel around her adoptive daughter's shoulders.

Severus had found the main source of the bleeding; a deep cut on Tansy's thigh and he immediately started to croon the spell that would start the blood clotting and the healing process. Shards of bloodstained glass plinked to the floor as the wound magically expelled them. On closer examination, Minerva could see a multitude of smaller cuts over Tansy's hands and arms and she used her wand to send a Patronus down to the hospital wing for Madam Pomfrey, knowing instinctively that a blood replenishing potion would be needed.

Severus had finished healing the thigh wound and he now turned to the deepest of the cuts on Tansy's left forearm.

'How did this happen, Miss Laverstock?' He asked, tersely, summoning a bottle of dittany from the cupboard and gently dripping it into the wounds. Tansy stared at him for several seconds, as if she was having trouble focusing on his face. She seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep. 'Try to stay awake now. How did this happen?' His face betrayed no emotion at all, although it was clear to Minerva what he was thinking; they were both thinking the same thing.

Tansy stared at him, bewildered by the questioning and blinked rapidly.

'What happened Tansy?' Minerva asked softly, turning Tansy's head so that she was forced to look her adoptive mother in the eyes. In her heart, Minerva thought that she already knew the answer.

'I… I fell over…' Tansy muttered. 'I landed in the glass.' Severus and Minerva exchanged deeply disbelieving looks. 'The mirror exploded. I wanted…' Tansy's voice faded away as she struggled to remain conscious.

'Try to stay awake, Miss Laverstock.' Severus repeated, in a quiet voice.

'Did you want to hurt yourself, Tansy?' Minerva asked. In spite of her efforts to remain in control of the situation her voice shook slightly as she voiced the question.

'No! Yes! I don't know!' Tansy shook her head violently. 'I wanted to stop thinking but… I don't know!' Her voice rose slightly in her panic. 'The fog… the darkness. I can't fight it, Professor! Help me…'

Both Severus and Minerva reached for the girl together as Tansy's eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped backwards against the bath, having finally succumbed to peaceful unconsciousness.

Thank you so much for my reviews! They really inspire me. I hope all of you are staying safe and well. Like Tansy, I'm not sure myself if this was a deliberate self-harm attempt. Fred is going through a very hard time too and things were bound to get on top of him.