To Lovingly Hate You

The Butterfly Effect

Third Person

"You truly don't have to keep wrapping it you know"

Adeline murmured as she watched Harry unwrap an injury she'd sustained during cotillion, as he'd been managing each and every bruise, scrape, and cut she had endured that night with intense care. He shook his head as he tossed the old bandage and simply put more healing ointment onto the mere surface scrape, as the injuries had healed quickly thanks to his care. He began rewrapping fresh bandage over her knuckles with practiced care,

"I'm aware, but I'm gonna wrap 'em as long as they're classified as injuries, don't want 'em leaving more scars, or scales in your case, behind, now do we?" 

Harry simply replied as his first aid skills were once more shown off by his impressive speed and precision, but even with this, there was still an air of care in his movements all the same. Adeline lightly rolled her eyes and looked out the window as he wrapped things up, her pointy ears flicking around as always as they picked up different sounds outside of her room. Today was meant to be a special day for Adeline, as... well, it was her eighteenth birthday.

But alas, a simple fact overshadowed her big eighteenth birthday, and it was that after today, she would officially be fake dating Harry... the man who, after cotillion, she rarely even made eye contact with. The things she felt that night were not things she'd ever prepared for, and so, naturally, she would block them out. It was easy that her eighteenth birthday would most likely not be that big of a deal, as Adeline already didn't find much love in the occasion, she didn't feel the age she was... she didn't feel older, or younger, she just... didn't feel it. Her friends knew it, her family knew it, Harry... had figured such, given how especially moody she was when she awoke.

Harry finished wrapping the last of her remaining wounds and stepped back, leaving her gazing out her bedroom window in silence for a moment, he'd let the night that was Cotillion rest, not bringing it up even once after the fact... but there were so many things that clawed at the back of his mind when he had a single moment of rest,

"Adeline... may I have a small word?"

He asked after a moment, watching her flex her bandaged knuckles a few times as she turned back to him and simply glanced his way, not at him,

"Hm?"

She simply hummed, he knew it most likely wasn't the best time to talk about what he wanted to talk about, as Adeline was rather grumpy, sure, but he just at least wanted to see how far he could get if he tried. He paused for a moment, pondering how he wanted to go about this, or what he wanted to ask first, but he started with the thing most prying at him, "Back at Cotillion... when you were really using your powers and your dress had gotten rather torn... it looked like there was some sort of sigil on your back, like a symbol... what is that? I've never seen someone have something like that before either... especially with how it seemed to radiate power and such... I may be prying, but I am ever curious my lady"

Adeline visibly stiffened up ever so slightly at that, and Harry noticed, he no longer spoke as Adeline quickly grew... a thousand-yard stare off into the corner of the room. She remained like that for a few moments before taking a deep breath and snapping herself out of it with a few quick blinks. She slowly fully turned to him and finally looked up to meet his eyes,

"That's... not exactly something you need to know about"

She responded in proper Adeline fashion, but Harry softly shook his head and took a single step closer,

"I know, but I'd like to know... if you speak, I'll listen. I know you rarely feel heard... and I'm asking to do just that right now, just hear you, ya can't stay closed off entirely forever, and who better to share with than the one man who's signed an NDA?"