Pure

Telling Secrets

 I dropped the note on my bedside table next to the necklace from the shoppe in Hogsmeade, then flicked out the lights with my wand, and grasped the little wooden carving, which I cradled until I fell asleep.

~~~

As fate would have it, the rain returned in the morning, and thundered against my window. I groaned and squeezed my eyes shut tighter before rolling off the bed. I set the carving, which stayed tightly in my embrace all night, on the bedside table. I sighed, and pulled on a dress, and a wool coat. What I wouldn't give for a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt...

I looked in the mirror and combed down my hair, which was an everyday struggle, but eventually wrangled it into a low bun. I hurried out of my dormitory, and past the common room. I bounded down the stairs to the entrance of the castle. My mission for the day? Find Abraxas, and apologize. I couldn't allow my moonlit night at the beach to take away the only real friend I was still allowed to have.

Before rushing out of my room to find him, I strung his small sun carving on a piece of leather twine, then paused for a moment, looking at my hand where Riddle's ring still was. It was still too big to be comfortable on my thumb, so I added it to the twine and put it around my neck, where it hung like a choker. Then for good measure, I added the necklace that I bought in the shoppe at Hogsmeade. I looked at myself in the mirror, then left to find Abraxas.

It didn't take long to locate him. He was already in the Great Hall feasting on his breakfast at the end of the Slytherin table closest to the door, facing away from the rest of the hall. My eyes zeroed in on him only, and I went and sat at the end of the Gryffindor table, to plan an apology, but then, an idea came to my head. I pulled out my wand and animated a piece of paper in the form of a bird. I sent it flying towards Abraxas.

It took a second for him to realize it was hovering in front of him, but when it finally got his attention, I let him see what it was, then released another charm, and made it glow, gently at first, but then it became a ball of light, a 'sun' in some aspect. I allowed it to disappear silently and suddenly, and then snuck up and sat next to him.

"I'm so sorry Abraxas," I said, peering into his blue eyes. They were still filled with guilt, and now hurt... hurt that I had caused.

"Why didn't you come if you felt that way?" he muttered, and turned back to his meal.

"I wanted to! I really did," I exclaimed, and then continued cautiously, "Something just came up, and I wasn't able to."

"More important than me was it?" he remarked sarcastically, shifting himself, so he was no longer looking at me. He was trying to put up an indifferent front.

"Abraxas," I said. I moved closer to him, and reached up my hand. I pulled his chin towards me so he was once again looking at me. We locked eyes.

"There's something you're not telling me," he muttered, "and it's not just whatever you were doing last night... you're hiding something."

At that I scoffed and pulled away... like he didn't have some explaining to do as well! That was the reason we got into this argument to begin with. I almost stood right then and there and marched out of the Great Hall, but instead gripped my nails onto the long pew-like bench we were both sitting at, and took a deep breath.

"I think we both haven't been completely honest with each other," I noted. Abraxas scrunched his eyebrows in a boyish manner, and sighed.

"I suppose," he said, and then his head jolted up to the front of the Slytherin table. Abraxas' eyes flashed, and then he looked away, and shifted a little closer to where I was sitting. I turned my head, and suddenly froze.