Letters I Can't Send

9

Draco's POV

While everyone was enjoying the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, Sirius Black found his way into the castle. He got in somehow, but we don't know how.

All Hogwarts houses got sent to the Great Hall to sleep tonight for our own safety. Everyone is cluttered around in sleeping bags, chattering with one another about the incident at hand.

I notice Quinn all alone sitting in one of the sleeping bags, brushing her hair. Y/n, however, is nowhere in sight. The two of them are usually inseparable...

I see Quinn go up talking to a few other Slytherins with a worried look on her face.

As soon as everyone is in their sleeping bags—some asleep, though most only pretending—I sneak out of the Great Hall, hopefully unnoticed.

I wander the halls for a few minutes until I hear something. I prepare my wand, for if it's Black, but the sounds turn into sobs and I lower my wand. I creep cautiously around a corner near a stairwell, and I see a person. A girl.

"Ellis?" I say as I round the corner and see her sitting on a step, her head in her hands.

She looks up abruptly and jumps up backing away from me. "Don't." she says. Her eyes are puffy and red, she has traces of blood on her hands and...on her lips too? What could have happened?

I freeze and watch her. She looks scared. She looks like she's been through hell—her hair is disheveled, her fingers are curled into fists at her sides and look as if she's trying not to seem scared but she is. But her lip is quivering and her fists are trembling.

"What—what happened to you?" I ask and put my foot on the first step of the staircase she's chosen to hide in. She takes a step back. "Woah," I say and put my hands in up in the air slowly just to my hips, saying, "I won't hurt you, you know that," she doesn't say or do anything. Just stands there and watches me like I'm holding a knife, about to slice her to pieces.

My eyes involuntarily scan down the length of her body, stopping on her also disheveled clothes. "What are you doing out here anyway? Everyone was called to the Great Hall—Sirius Black is somewhere in the castle," I say, examining her appearance further, I notice red lines on her neck and wrists. "Are you hurt?"

She looks around like she doesn't know what to say or do. Then she just slumps to the floor and breaks into tears again.

For a moment, I just stand there and watch her, then I come to my senses and go to her side, squatting down next her. "Let me see," I say softly—a voice I've never heard come from my throat before, it surprises me.

She reluctantly holds out her hand and shows me her wrist. There are little scrapes and on the insides of them and the fronts are red, like they had been tied with a rope...

"Merlin," I breathe. "What did you do?" she just shakes her head.

"I-I was walking in Hogsmeade in the dark, alone." She says and I know exactly what's happened. I gulp and feel myself growing angry. Growing tense, fueled to protect her with everything I have.

"Who," It's hardly a question. I want to know what sick bastard did this to her.

She takes a moment to answer, she won't show me her face. "The m-man at the ice cream stand," she stutters out finally.

The man at the ice cream stand. Yes, I'd seen him on my trip today, he looked shady, now that I think about it.

But he hurt her. He hurt her he hurt her he hurt her he hurt her. He hurt Y/n.

"I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," I say in a low voice. I'm just barely containing my anger. "Are you okay?" I say, trying to calm myself down for Y/n's sake. "Jesus, what's wrong with me? Of course you're not okay." I say and rub my hand up and down her arm.