Written for:
February Event at Hogwarts: (lyric) "If it's a broken part, replace it; if it's a broken arm, then brace it; if it's a broken heart then face it." - Jason Mraz and (emotion/feeling) sensitive.
200 Characters in 200 Days: James S Potter
If You Dare Challenge: 449. Splinter
Ultimate Chocolate Frog Cards Challenge: Dilys Derwent - Use the location of St Mungo's.
Valentine Making Station Challenge: Butterfly Sticker - write about someone emotionally, mentally, and/or physically fragile.
Gringotts Prompt Bank: (words instead of said) greeted, responded, admitted, finished (prepositions) but, without, (family vocab) cousin, (emotions and feelings) guilty, fatigued, vulnerable, grief, understanding.
Words: 1220

Warnings for themes of domestic abuse (emotional rather than physical). Nothing explicit.

Coincidence

James stared at his cousin in the hospital bed as she slept. She looked tiny wrapped up in the white sheets; fragile beside the softness of the pillow. She looked like she was in pain, even as she dreamed.

He knew she looked a lot worse than she was. She'd only really broken an arm. The doctors said she'd lost a lot of blood, so she was pale and fatigued, but it was only temporary.

James thought the doctor was wrong. He knew the symptoms would only be temporary if the wounds were only physical.

If the truth was told, James wasn't sure why he was here. It wasn't his job to look after her, and her mother had been doing a wonderful job of it. He should be at home, asking his mum if she'd heard anything, making up inventive ways to make Jack Thomas suffer for what he'd done.

But James couldn't stay away. He felt as though there was something more going on than what everyone else was seeing. When Dominique would say she was fine, smiling briefly before looking away at some corner of the room, everyone seemed to hear her words with comfort. James saw the way her smile didn't last long enough to be genuine; he saw how it didn't reach her hard, tired eyes. He'd tried to ask her what was wrong, but she'd just tell him it was nothing. She'd get over it. She'd be fine.

James didn't believe her.

The Quidditch accident was just an accident to everyone else, just a coincidence. Yeah, she'd just broken up with her boyfriend, so it was a horrible coincidence, but they say these things come in threes, and it's not like the two things were related. A week before the fall out, she'd broken the mirror on her dressing table. The French antique had been given to Dominique when she was only young, and she'd loved it ever since. She'd not replaced the mirror yet, knowing it would never look quite the same again, that it would always bear the marks of its past.

Visiting hours in the main ward were over, but Dominique had been given a private room for the night. She'd be sent home in the morning, all patched up. James sat in the chair beside her bed, waiting for her to wake up, knowing he'd never have a better time to talk to her.

It was two hours later when she began to stir. James leant forward, attentive, forgetting about the splinter in his finger he'd been picking at, waiting for her to come around and see him.

"Hey," he greeted softly when she looked at him with a soft smile.

"What are you still doing here?" she asked. "It's only a broken arm, you know." Her voice was thick with sleep still as she used her good arm to pull herself up to seating.

"Is it?" James asked, suggestive.

"What's that supposed to mean? Of course it is. You were here when the Healers examined me; you heard them," Dominique responded, on the defensive even if she didn't quite know why.

"I was also there when you fell off your broom. You've pulled that stunt a hundred times, Dom. It's never gone wrong before. I was watching you. You just… switched off. Half way through, you just turned off, like you forgot where you were and what you were doing. When you came back to reality, it was too late," James told her, explaining things she already knew.

"I just got distracted, that's all," Dominique said, staring at her hands as they twirled restless in her lap.

"Since when do you get distracted playing Quidditch?" James asked, incredulous. "Quidditch is your distraction."

Dominique gave a rueful laugh, knowing she was getting nothing past it. "You see too much," she chastised him, before sighing. James could see resignation on her face as she understood she'd have to explain, so he waited in silence while she gathered her thoughts.

"You know my mirror broke? Did anyone tell you what happened?" she asked, as if hoping she wouldn't have to explain herself.

"Not really."

"I punched it. I broke it on purpose," she admitted.

"Why?"

"Because I got angry. I didn't like what I saw. Jack… Jack was always very quick to tell me what he liked and didn't like about my appearance. I think he thought it didn't really matter, wasn't really important. It was a Saturday, and I was sat at the dressing table with absolutely no idea what to wear, or how to do my make-up or style my hair. I didn't know what was beautiful anymore. I only knew what I liked, and what he liked, and how the two were not the same," Dominique explained, not looking at James as she spoke. It made her feel vulnerable and weak to say out loud, now she could look back on it all with the gift of hindsight.

James didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to help. He looked on in sadness as lines of the things people usually said at times like that floated through his mind, useless. She didn't need pity. James chose not to say anything, hoping that by listening, he was doing enough.

"I should hate him. I know I should. He spent months wearing my down, trying to break me like I was a horse in need of training. He should represent everything I want to spend the rest of my life fighting against, for the sake of all the other girls out there like me," Dominique started, and James waited for the 'but', anticipating the sorrow it would bring. "But I can't. I can't think about it all without thinking about me, because the whole thing just makes me feel stupid. I didn't think I'd ever be one of those girls, a victim. I thought I knew how to see the signs and how to get out. I knew the excuses the victims made, and I'd never make them. But I did. I let him under my skin. I can't stop thinking about it, James. I can't stop feeling guilty."

James watched her as tears began to form in her eyes. Her voice was croaking and weak, as if the weight of her grief was compressing her vocal chords. As if it didn't want to be spoken aloud.

"Dom, it doesn't make you weak. It happens, unfortunately, all the time, to strong, intelligent people. No one ever thinks of themselves as victims; the signs aren't all that easy to spot," James told her, attempting to comfort the sensitive soul. "Look, if it's a broken mirror, we can replace it. A broken arm can be fixed easily. But if it's a broken heart - if you loved him - you need to face it," he finished, his voice not unkind.

"I think… He wasn't worthy of it, but… I think I did love him," Dominique admitted, tears beginning to fall unbidden. James stood and moved to sit beside her on the back, allowing her to sink into his shoulder in search of comfort.

"That's okay," he told her, giving credence to her feelings. "Admitting it, being truthful with yourself, it'll help you get better. I'll help you get better. I promise."