𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐏A𝐑𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄, jp

Your Fault.

TW - this chapter does include mentions of Self Harm, and Eating Disorders.

If this is something that you wish to skip, there will be a summary at the end of the chapter, however, this will be a theme throughout the fic (though the self harm won't be explicit), so please read with caution.
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Hope sat at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug she hadn't taken a sip from. Outside, the snow had begun to melt, dripping steadily from the eaves in soft plinks.

"She didn't touch the food again," she said quietly.

Lyall stood at the sink, staring out the window. "It's been nearly a month, Hope. They go back to school in a week."

"She won't speak to me. She doesn't even move when I go in. She just ignores me. I don't know what to do. Are we supposed to send her back to Hogwarts?"

Lyall wiped his hands slowly on a towel. "It might put her back into place," he said thoughtfully. "Give her a routine again, we could ask Minerva to keep an eye on her."

"D'you think that's enough?" She asked, "she seems...unstable, I don't know if it would be the right decision."

Lyall didn't answer right away. He pulled out a chair but didn't sit, one hand resting on its back as he looked at his wife. His eyes were tired, more lines there than even a month ago. "I don't know what the right place is anymore," he admitted. "She doesn't let either of us in."

"We can't let her stay locked away here. At least at Hogwarts, she'd be forced to get up and go to her lessons. One way or another, she'd have to," Hope said. "But that doesn't help our situation with her not eating, it's not safe Lyall, she's basically starving herself."

"I think we need to find out why," Lyall decided. "Whether it's...whether it's to do with the way she looks or if it's purely out being too depressed to bother."

"Is that even a thing?" Hope asked. Things like this weren't ever covered in the news, she didn't understand any of it, she still hardly understood what depression was. Shed tried reading up on it, and was sure it was what Izzy was going through, but all of the technical muggle phrasing was confusing her. She was never good at science.

Lyall let out a long breath and rubbed his hands over his face, elbows resting heavily on the table now. "Yes, it's a thing," he said, voice rough. "It's not about being lazy or ungrateful though, it's about not being able to care. I think she's exhausted from her own thoughts, I think she's too busy thinking, she doesn't care for anything else."

Hope's eyes filled with teas , but she blinked rapidly, swallowing the lump rising in her throat. "I don't know how to help someone with that. I'm her mum. I'm supposed to fix things. I bandaged knees, Lyall. I made the monsters in the wardrobe disappear. But this?" She shook her head. "She's fading away, and I don't know how to bring her back."

"You're not failing her," Lyall said gently. "This isn't something you can fix with a plaster and a cup of tea."

Hope gave a bitter laugh, short and sharp.

"Izzy's never been like this," she said quietly. "When she was expelled from Beauxbatons she was sarcastic and snarky. Witty. She had energy and always had things to say. Now she has nothing to say and I don't understand how someone can change so much in such a short amount of time? Surely Remus is doing more to her than we know?"

"He must be, at school when we're not there. Maybe when no one's there," Lyall nodded. "She can't keep shutting everything out. Whatever's eating at her, she's burying it and I think we need to use tough love to get it out. Maybe that would work?"