Serpent's Veil || Draco Malfoy.

The Weight of Secrets

🎵"Because of You" - Kelly Clarkson

"I'm so happy we are finally going back to Hogwarts," Daphne said, smiling while looking through one of the windows in our compartment, one of the many that filled the Hogwarts Express.

Two days had passed since I had gotten my mark, and nothing much had happened. 

I hadn't been able to reach Theo at first, and that worried me. 

I knew he was having trouble with his dad. 

As someone who knew him well, it was easy to tell when you started to notice his eye bags getting more profound or the scars on his face multiplying.

The day I found out that his dad beat him was one of the toughest in my life, and, of course, in his.

It was the summer of the third year when we started to get closer. I had just returned from my family's annual holiday, so I hadn't seen him or any of my friends in a month, but given his recent 'upgrade' in my life, he got to see me first.

We were in my house and had grabbed some ice cream from a nearby shop to enjoy it together while we caught up on what had been going on while I was in Egypt, enjoying the pyramids and the dust.It was when we started talking that I noticed something was off. Theo was normally super talkative, but that day he was awfully quiet.

So I asked him if something was wrong.

He denied anything being out of order at first, but it didn't take long for the real reason for his worries to come out.

"Everything is okay, Emily, really."

I looked at him sceptically, the tremble in his voice and the forced smile on his face only solidifying my conviction that something was wrong.

"I don't believe you. Something's clearly bothering you, Theo. You can't keep fooling me like this."

Frustration laced his voice as he lifted his shirt, revealing a collection of scars and bruises, some old and some fresh. Anger and sadness welled up within me as my eyes landed on the bruise he had on his face too.

"This is what's going on. My father has been beating me, okay? Happy now?"

Tears streamed down my face as I reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace, the sight of his bruised body and the revelation of what he had been enduring hitting me like a punch to the gut.

I couldn't believe he was going through something like that and had said nothing.

And that it was all going on in his home.

It was too much for me to take in.

That day, as he explained that the alcohol and the stress at work had prompted his father to start discharging his anger on him, I promised myself that that wasn't going to happen again, that his dad wasn't going to lay a hand on him ever again.

I was wrong.

After all, what could a thirteen-year-old girl do against a forty-year-old man who clearly had the upper hand? Despite my attempts to tell my parents and to try and get Theo to confide in at least one more person in our friend group, I had failed.