Sorry it's been a while. I've rewritten this a few times but not entirely sure how happy I am with it. I've also gone back and edited a few of my old chapters, nothing major just slight changes and noticed spelling errors even though i re-read everything a hundred times.

Lilith knew that she was trying too hard, but what else was she meant to do. As she sat in front of the mirror fixing her hair, trying to make herself feel even remotely normal as dressed for class, she couldn't help but think how nice it would be to crawl back into bed, pull the sheets over her and never have to leave again.

It has been two days since the incident, that's what Cordelia had started referring to it as, and she still couldn't shift the weight that had settled on her chest. Everyone's screams seemed to vibrate in her ears every time she closed her eyes and Fred's terrified face haunted her throughout the day.

Despite his actions in the girls bathroom she knew it couldn't carry on this way. She knew it the minute he had pulled her into that hug, how Fred gently caressed her back, his cheek pressed against the top of her head, his large frame engulfing her and she recalled feeling safe, that she could feel the affection he held for her in the simple action.

The more she thought about it over the weekend, the worse she felt. She was undeserving of his kind and reassuring words, deep down she knew it was going to have to end. She just didn't know how she was going to end it.

Finally she musters up enough courage to ascend the stairs to the Slytherin common for the first time in days. There's a few students scattered about, but her little cousin is sat on the sofa, his head spinning to see her as if he felt her presence.

"You're finally up then?" He says softly and she can see the concern in his eyes.

"Yeah, finally."

She takes a seat next to him and he discards the book he had been reading.

"So, what did I miss?"

He shrugs, not seeming to want to answer.

"come on, there must be something. No new gossip?"

Draco wets his lips as he avoids her gaze. "Nothing new. Your still the topic of conversation."

"I thought Potter would have done something by now to get it off of me." She half laughs, but Draco doesn't join in.

"You know everyone thinks you've gone soft."

She hates the way he says it, like he agrees with the statement.

"And who exactly, is everyone?"

"Goyle…Phlegm…"

She grimaces. "As if I give a shit what they think."

"Me." Draco says softly, his gaze not faltering. "You should have torn that little leprechaun a new one for what he said to you."

The only reason she hadn't was because of Fred. Once upon a time her and Cordelia would have pinned Finnigan to the ceiling and left him there until Filch found him, but she didn't want Fred hating her for it. So she had forced Cordelia to step down despite the fact she wanted to watch her torture the little short arse.

"It doesn't matter."

"It does!" He snaps at her. "You're meant to be the example and you're letting them walk all over you. Mad Eye, fucking Fudge, that filthy half-blood Finnigan." Lilith flinches at his words but she can almost feel the anguish in his voice as he talks, his face redding with anger. "You'll defend that fat lump Longbottom but won't even do it for yourself anymore."

She doesn't know what to tell him. Maybe she should just admit she doesn't have any more fight in her. It had been six years of name calling, of her defending herself but it just made it worse. If she was a bitch people hated her, and if she wasn't other people hated her for it. She couldn't win.

"I'm just…I'm sick of everyone hating me." She says coldly and he scowls.

"You're a Lestrange. Why do you care if they all hate you? Half breed's and Mud bloods. It's not like they matter."

"You sound – "

"What?" He snaps at her and she falters a bit. She hated this persona he put up at school, rich boy Malfoy who despised anyone who wasn't as pure as him, as rich as him. She missed her little cousin who wasn't influenced by his father's spiteful words, but that seemed so long ago.

"Just like Lucius."

Draco flounders for a second before standing from the sofa, his back to her for a moment before he finally turns. "Your better than hiding in your room and letting them walk all over you. Why don't you understand that?"

She can't say anything in response before he finally leaves, leaving her alone.

Lilith paced outside of the great hall, trying to gain the nerve to walk inside. As the few people that walked past glared at her her confidence steadily declined. She couldn't find it in herself to enter the great hall and have every single person staring, all of them hating her. So she turned around and walks back the way she came, deciding right there and then she was going back to bed, that she couldn't force herself to face it just yet.

"Lestrange!"

Fuck. Xander. That was another person she was trying to avoid. She freezes as he walks over to her, placing a kiss on her check. "Thought you had gone AWOL for a while there."

"Well, I haven't. I've just been – "

"Yeah I know. Don't worry about it. But now that I've found you, maybe we could go somewhere…talk? You have a free period right?"

Lilith smiles slightly as she feels his fingers entwin with hers and she nods as he smiles back. That's all she had wanted really, someone to talk to about it. Cordelia had been useless in that matter as all she did over the weekend was complain about how she hadn't let her flay Finnigan. Draco has been useless in that aspect as well.

She knew Fred would have listen if she had asked him to, but she had made a decision sometime around three am Saturday morning that wouldn't happen, and she was sticking with it.

'Come on then Lestrange."

She thought he had wanted to talk, check up on her, but instead after the two of them left the exterior of the great hall he pulled her into the nearest empty corridor, his lips feverishly finding hers. For a moment she thought about stopping, this isn't what she wanted or needed right then, but for some reason it was proving to be an excellent interference to the constant stream that was going through her mind and she was unable to shut off. Maybe she should have done this days ago.

As he kissed her, she forgot about the lesson, about everyone's eyes on her. All she couldn't concentrate on were his hands roaming up her jumper, and his mouth which was nipping at her neck.

"I thought you wanted to talk?" She sighed as his hands caressed the skin on her back.

"This is better than talking." He smirks as he reaches her jaw. "Besides, you seemed like you needed cheering up."

"Is this how you cheer up all your friends?"

"Only the pretty ones." He chuckles and his lips meet hers again. She allows herself to melt into it, enjoying the distraction it brings, even if there is something strange. Regardless, she allows her eyes to flicker shut her mind starts to wander and as she feels Xander's fingers skim against the bottom of her skirt she doesn't think much of it.

"I know something that would really cheer you up." Xander murmurs it softly as he places a slightly harder, longer kiss against her mouth, his hand higher now, trailing along her upper thigh and Lilith forces herself to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Xander I don't – "

She becomes slightly lost in his touch, his kisses. Fuck. She's trying to decide in that moment if she wanted to. It's not like she hadn't thought about it, it just so happened those thoughts had been about someone else stupidly enough.

"Bloody hell!"

They break apart at the sound of Ron Weasley's voice echoing through the corridor, and she looks over, slightly horrified when she sees Fred and George stood behind their brother and she's automatically fixes her skirt.

"Alright Weasley?" Xander doesn't seem even the slightest bit embarrassed, but Lilith can feel her cheeks start to warm furiously, her heart pounding against her chest as Fred gapes at her.

"Not as good as you by the looks of it." George mumbles and he elbows his twin, but Fred still hasn't broken this gaze, in fact he looks slightly torn up.

"We should leave them to it." He finally says as he pushes George alone, grabbing Ron by the neck and dragging him out of site as well.

"That was slightly horrifying." He says with a chuckle. "I suppose it will give people something new to talk about."

Great. Just what she wanted. More gossip surrounding her.

"Which one was it…you know…"

She finally looks up at him, realising what he's talking about. "Fred."

"I can never tell them apart. The one that was staring at you?"

She had hoped he hadn't noticed it.

"You know Cordelia told me he followed you, after it happened. He didn't…He didn't say anything to you right? Make it worse?"

She shakes her head before he can continue. "No. He didn't. He was nice about it, actually."

That was the worst part about it, how bloody nice he had been. She would have preferred it if he had been angry, yelled at her, feared her, at least it would have given her a better reason to stay away from him. But no, the bloody idiot had to go and be fucking nice about it, had to make sure that she wasn't traumatised, bloody comfort her, something Xander had failed to do. As good as he was at making her forget about it, comforting wasn't exactly his forte.

"Should I be worried?"

"About what?"

"Fred."

She sees the genuine concern in his dark eyes. "Course not." She shrugs. "I mean, come on. He's not exactly my type."

Lilith arrived to Potions early, earning a glance from Snape as she took her seat. She thought it would be easier if she arrived first, at least then when everyone walked in she could hide in the depths on the back of the class. The classroom slowly starts to fill and she opens her potions book to distract herself from the glances from the other students, then Cordelia come bounding in, running to her desk, practically throwing herself down on top of it.

"So?"

Cordelia's eyes locked on hers with a smirk plastered on her face as she takes a seat on her stool. "So...?"

The blonde huffs at Lilith's response.

"So, did you and Xander...you know."

Lilith squeezes the quill in her hand, looking around to make sure no one else was listening in.

"Why would you even ask that?"

"Because I heard a rumour that he was fingering you in the bloody corridor!"

She feels absolutely mortified, but she tries with every ounce of her being to not appear it.

"That's not what happened in the slightest. We were just kissing – it wasn't – "

The books slamming down on the desk forces the pair to stop, and she glances over to Fred who has now taking his seat, his jaw locked as he opens his potions book.

"What's wrong with you Weasley? Who burst your bubble?"

"Not a clue what you're talking about Travers." His tone is off as he looks between the pair before returning his gaze to his book.

Cordelia arches an eyebrow before leaning in one last time. "Our discussion isn't over."

Lilith rolls her eyes as Cordelia turns back around just as Lee Jordan takes his seat. Fred is now angrily flicking through the pages and she can't help but stare at him as he does.

"Hey Fred, careful, she might try to poison you this time!"

A few people that have arrived chuckle at McGuire's snipe, but there's an almighty crash as his stool is pulled from under him and he lands to the floor. For a moment she stares, at the Ravenclaw on the floor, and then she see's Fred place his wand back on the table before he returns to his angry page turning.

He hadn't spoken to her for most of the lesson and she found it completely unnerving. As she stirs the ingredients in her cauldron she looks over at Fred who is rubbing the back of his neck as he read the instructions and she tries to remind herself for the hundredth time it couldn't bloody happen. She was with Xander, she liked Xander.

Fred licks her lips as he concentrates and she forces herself to look away from him before her mind starts to think of other things, again. But why was there this unnerving sense of guilt when she looked at him. She had no reason to be, he wasn't her boyfriend, he wasn't meant to be anything. So why was the fact he wouldn't even look in her direction making her feel so bad.

No. It wasn't. it's what she wanted.

"Lilith?"

His voice seems to startle her, and she looks over to him, but he's staring at her cauldron which has started to bubble over and it's him who bends over to lower the flame as the potion tipples over the sides.

"Fuck." She sighs as she looks at the remnants of her ruined potion, most which have spilled onto the table and down onto the floor. She throws the spoon into the cauldron in defeat, several of the class are looking in her direction and she sees Angelina's eyes glaring daggers at her. Why was everything so suffocating.

"Here." Fred says as he picks up his wand, clearing up the mess on the table and floor. "Do you want to share my potion?"

"No, I –"

He sighs and reaches over, his large hand grabbing her arm and tugging her over to him. "Just share mine prefect. But don't cock it up. You stir. I'll add the ingredients."

Lilith does as she's told because she's not sure what else to go. She knew why Fred was off with her, but she didn't know how to fix that. She didn't want to mention it."

He's cutting up the mandrake root when he seems to finally want to speak.

"You know, I told Ron if he said anything, I'd make him bald."

She stirs slowly, contemplating his words.

"We weren't…it was just…"

"He is your boyfriend. Why wouldn't you?"

There's hurt in his tone, but it's like he's trying to play it of as he clears his throat.

"It was more of a distraction, than anything." She admits. It was strange really, she can't put her finger on it, but something was missing from her kisses with Xander. Maybe she just wasn't in the right frame of mind to receive them, considering.

"You know, I can be very distracting. I've won awards for how distracting I am."

It's the first smile she's received all lesson, even if it is only tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then she notices the bruises on her neck, the remanets of the nail marks etched into his skin, and the slight moment of comfort Fred brought her disappears, and she doesn't talk for the remainder of the lesson.

She clears her desk slowly, waiting for everyone to leave before she forces herself to. She drops her hand into her pocket, feeling the knife against her fingers. It had been forgotten about it on Friday as she ran out of the classroom, still clutched in her fist and throughout the weekend it had stayed under her mattress. Lilith was planning on giving it back to Mad eye's seeing that his lesson was on the way to her Arithmancy lesson. That, or shove it down his throat.

Her plans are thwarted when she encounters Fred in the dungeon corridor, leaning against the cold stone wall.

"I thought I could walk you to your next lesson."

"Are you my bodyguard now?"

"If that's what you want to call me?" Lilith noticed his expression warmed when she smiled slightly at him.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to. I don't want you to feel like your obligated."

Fred smirks as pushes himself from the wall, holding his book lazily at his side. "You should know by now Lil – I don't do anything I don't want to."

Wasn't that the truth. So the two of them walk, out of the dungeons and they head up the stair case, although she doesn't tell him of her intention to visit Mad eye first.

"Why Lil – Why do you call me that?" The question springs into her mind as they reach the top of the stairs leading to the classroom corridors.

"uh…" His free hand pushes his hair back. "Well, Lilith, as nice as it is, it's so formal isn't it?"

"Everyone just calls me Lestrange to be honest."

"I suppose I could…but I know you hate it."

She pauses, staring at him, and Fred moves forward a few steps before he realises she's stopped moving.

"What do you mean?"

Fred wets his lips, taking the few steps back so he's near her again. "It's just something I noticed….I'm probably wrong."

She waits for the answer and something flickers in his eyes before he speaks. "You flinch."

Lilith's dumfounded and he lets out a breath.

"When I say it. When other people say it. Lestrange. You flinch. So I try not to say it, because it's like you hate it."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. Did she do that? How had she not realised she did that? Yes, she did hate it. More than anything. She had begged her aunt and uncle to let her use Malfoy before she started school, but they had refused.

You should be proud to be a Lestrange. Her uncle had screamed the words at her, but if she could cut the words out of her life she would have.

How had Fred Weasley noticed that?

Oh right, because he knew her…evidently.

Fred stares at her a moment with a sad look, but it fades, and she feels his hand against hers, his thumb brushing the skin of her hand. "If you hate Lil – well - I'll just have to think of something better." Fred swallows hard and she can see his Adams apple bob against the bruise on his throat, and it makes her chest hurt. "What does the boyfriend call you?"

Lestrange. He called her Lestrange.

"Does it matter?" She says quietly, realising she had to do it now, because the way he was staring at her in that moment was too much. Weasley was falling for her, and she knew because he was too glaring obvious about it. The way he looked at her, spoke to her, even in his jealousy he still tried, and she was….no. No she wasn't.

She had to cut it off before she fell too.

"Fred, I've been thinking – "

"Woah, careful Weasley! She might try to finish the job!" Her stomach drops as she looks over to phlegm who had been roaming down the corridor, smirk on his face as he looks between the two. "Or is this more of a…uh…social interaction."

Lilith snatches her hand from Fred's and can see the thunder in the beaters eyes as he grimaces. "Don't you have a first year to go torture?"

Phlegm looks between the two, cracking into a smile. "Oh, I get it. You trying to make it up to him Lestrange? From what I heard from you give it up pretty easy. Is this where we form the que?"

Fred step forward, fist clenched, and she forces herself in front of him, noticing Phlegm's absolute delight in the situation.

"Why don't you just shut the fuck up?" She spits at him, but it just seems to encourage him more.

"oohoooo, she's getting angsty. Wouldn't want Slytherin's resident psychopath to go after me now would – "

It all happens too quickly as it only takes a second for Fred to throw his books to the floor and to push her out of the way, grabbing Atticus by the cuff of his shirt.

"How about if you say another word to her I'll be the psyhco you have to deal with?"

He shoves Fred off, his eyes burning. "Just like a loser Gryffindor to protect a total slut! Everyone knows what she's like – "

The Slytherin's words make it so much fucking worse, because the next thing that happens is Fred's fist coming into contact with Atticus's stomach.

"Fred stop it!" She cries out, but it doesn't work, the two are now in full on war. Fist flying, both scrambling to hit the other. Fred shoves him to the floor climbing on top of him.

"Come on Phlegm, you can do better than that!"

He does, directly hitting Fred in the face and blood starts to pour from his nose. "Fuck!" He cries out before hitting the quidditch captain back harder and there's a crack.

She's had enough. Lilith pulls her wand from her skirt and aims it at the pair and they both fling apart, sliding across opposite sides of the hallway.

"Enough! Just stop!"

Fred is already clambering to his feet and Lilith flicks her wand again, just enough to back him against the wall to stop him from doing anything reckless, but he's still yelling at the top of his lungs. "If you say anything to her again Phlegm, even look at her your fucking dead. Do you hear me?"

The Slytherin starts to scramble for his wand, but Lilith raises hers first, forcing his eyes to widen. "We both know I would win so don't even try it."

His eyes flicker between hers and Fred who is still pinned against the wall, chest heaving heavily, and he spits blood at the ground by her feet before walking away. She waits until he's out of sight and flicks her wands and Fred pushes himself from the wall.

"Why did you do that!"

"What? Stop you from getting yourself hurt?!

He wipes the blood away from his mouth with the sleeve of his jumper but it smears, his chest is heaving hard as he continues to yell. "You should have let me, I fucking had him Lil, what he said, you should have let me!"

"It doesn't matter – "

"Why do you say that!" He roars. "It matters! It fucking matters that they do that! That they treat you like that! You don't fucking deserve it so stop acting like you – "

She doesn't know why she does it. It might be the mix of adrenaline she can feel coursing through her body, the fact that Fred's face is bloody and sweaty because of her, for her, but she grabs him by the neck and pulls him down so that their lips collide, the taste of blood, his blood, suddenly overwhelming her.

Lilith had toppled over the fucking edge.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Also despite the events of his chapter, this is still a slow burn. That doesn't mean things can't happen in between...