(A/N): Back to Elaine's POV, and the rest of the gang.

Trigger Warning: Discussion of self harm.

Elaine

We had all worked on composing the letter together- and then we had finished it up after Lily had gone to bed, in order to be able to speak freely about how exactly we knew Leo had hurt himself more than once. We had updated Brooke on the situation, and she seemed more exasperated than anything- after all, she had been the only one to know what he was doing at that point, and he had kept it a secret even from her- although it was probably so she didn't feel the need to tell us, which she did anyway, without even knowing she was catching him out.

After three drafts- one to get everything out there, one to insert vampire content after Lily had left, and one to polish everything up- we finally sent the letter off with Lawrence, and collapsed back onto our beds- well, I collapsed onto Leo's bed, but it was free real estate now that he wasn't going to be here for the rest of the holidays.

As I fluffed his pillow beneath my head- which still smelt distinctly of Leo- I mused on the fact that not so long ago, he had been forced to change his sheets after Lily had accidentally fallen asleep in his bed- and now, I knew it wouldn't bother him in the slightest. I thought back to our scenting session in the room of requirement- maybe he would even like it. I pushed that thought from my mind before I could start blushing, and instead cast my mind to how I thought Leo might react to the letter.

He never reacted well when we brought up our concerns about his well being, especially when it came to his self-destructive tendencies, but we had been making some solid progress, and I hoped that even if he wasn't keen to share with us, he would see the letter for what it was- an expression of concern, and to let him know we knew, and didn't blame him for not telling us the full truth when we confronted him.

"Um, Elaine...?" Peter's voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and his tentative tone immediately made me worry. Oh Merlin, please don't have figured out yet another time Leo hurt himself that we had previously missed.

"What?" He seemed thrown off by how I shot up, and actually seemed concerned- for me- before he realised I wasn't in any immediate danger. Good ol' Pete.

"Didn't- didn't you say Shari took over one of his letters, once?" Yeah, a few years ago, back when-

"Oh fuck! Oh shit, you're right! Oh no, he's going to kill us if they find out!" I hurried over to the window where we had sent Lawrence off, but obviously he was well and truly gone by this point. I went to set up the writing supplies again, to send another letter, but Sirius grabbed my hand to stop me.

"Elaine, a second letter is just going to make it look suspicious." Shit, he was right. Why was he right? I hate this!

"Look, as long as Leo gets to the letter first, I don't think we have to worry about them reading it," James said, continuing across to me despite the fact Sirius had already stopped me the way he had been on his way to do. "Once Leo knows what the letter is about, he won't want them to read it, and he'd do just about anything to stop that." Which relaxed me somewhat. "Of course, then they'll be really suspicious about why Leo is keeping this particular letter such a secret, which may actually be worse." Relaxation gone, thanks James, you're a real big help.

"If he hasn't told about the breakup with Brooke, he could say it's from her." We looked at Pete, and he flushed. "And that it was- er... private?" Ew.

"And this is Leo we're talking about, which means he almost definitely hasn't told them." Hmm, I wasn't so sure about that.

"Probably not in letter, but if they asked about her, or if anything new has happened since the term started, I'm pretty sure he would have." Which left us back at square one.

"I know it's not great, but if us accidentally sending the letter without considering whether it would truly be private makes them keep a closer eye on Leo's behavior... isn't that kind of a good thing?" Yeah, but it was a balance.

"It depends. Yes, we want Leo to be safe, and if he won't do it himself, other people will need to do it for him- but we also have a responsibility as his friends to keep his secrets safe, even if it might put him at risk." I sighed, leaning against one of the bed posts. "There's nothing we can do about the letter now, but we need to be more careful in the future." They all nodded in agreement, and there was a short pause in conversation.

"Do you think he's hurt himself since we found out?" Ugh, I hated that question, and I hated Sirius for asking it.

"I don't know." It was the only answer I could give. "He hasn't been wincing or acting uncomfortable with being touched since then, but I guess if he did it at night, and they were mostly healed by the next morning- He's got a good poker face. I don't know if I'd be able to tell." Remus shook his head slightly, and I stared at him. "What?" He looked almost ashamed.

"I- I haven't smelt any blood on him recently." We stared at him.

"And you've been trying to...?" He nodded rather sheepishly.

"I've been trying not to make it obvious, but- I just thought- I mean, it's not like he would tell us if he did, right?" We pretty much all unanimously agreed with a hell no to that. "So I've been trying to catch his scent every now and then- at least once a day. I usually don't like to, you know, because he smells like vampire and it's kind of weird to be smelling your best friend-" Oof, big awkward on that one. "I haven't smelt anything out of the ordinary though." Which was a huge relief. Not that it really meant he definitely hadn't hurt himself, but I trusted Remus's nose enough to be fairly confident he wasn't walking around all slashed up when we weren't looking.

Wait. If Remus was smelling Leo every day, did that mean- Oh Merlin. Did he know about what we did in the room of requirement? Both the scenting, and the- the feeding? I mean, I did theoretically have Leo's scent all over me both times, and even though my scent was much weaker, I knew Leo had to smell at least a little like me.

"That's good, you should keep doing that. If he catches you, just say you're interested in the shampoo he uses." Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius.

"Yeah, because that's not going to raise any suspicions, Sirius." Honestly, it probably wouldn't. I liked Leo's shampoo, so why couldn't Remus? "Then again, I haven't smelt any blood on him lately, even animal blood, so maybe my nose isn't the most reliable test." So, maybe he didn't know about Leo feeding on me. But now I was once again worried Leo was hurting himself without us knowing, so...

"Maybe he's feeding, then showering?" I suggested, and Remus shrugged.

"It's possible. Then again, its also possible he's cutting, feeding, and showering." Definitely a possibility.

"I don't know if there's any way for us to stop him from hurting himself if he wants to do so." James said, and I silently agreed. "I mean, its not like we can strap him down. Even if we told someone, his dad or whoever, its not like they can restrain him forever, and even if we took away all potentially sharp objects-"

"He has claws." I finished for him, and James nodded grimly. "We just have to convince him its a bad idea." They looked at me like I was crazy, and I felt like maybe I was, a little.

"Yeah, because that'll be so easy." Sirius muttered.

"...He said he hurts himself so he doesn't hurt other people, right?" Peter started, and I wondered where he was going with this.

"Yeah. Where are you going with this?" He wrung his hands together.

"Well, if we can stop him from feeling like he's going to hurt people, maybe he'll stop feeling the need to hurt himself." A great idea, in theory.

"That's great and all, Pete, but I've been trying to do that since first year, and I haven't exactly been making major strides." He seemed a little put out, but continued anyway.

"What if we weren't people?"

Um, what?

"Pete, I don't get where you're going with this." He shrugged, then gestured to Remus, who looked just as confused as I did.

"When Remus can't be around humans on the full moon, we stop being humans. So why don't we do the same for Leo?"

(A/N): Also, I remember back in one of the earlier chapters, when Leo was training Dahrya in the room of requirement, Leo said he didn't like seeing people get hurt, and Elaine said she'd put a mirror in front of Leo the next time he tried to do something stupid... that didn't age well.

This chapter has had a minor edit made to it on 26/4/23 - Added the trigger warning.