Saturday, 2:04 AM

Another long week of trying to pull herself together had led to an evening full of tears and sweets. The other girls had retreated to the dorm where Bella was silently crying under her covers. If they had noticed, they hadn't said anything and simply went to bed. She was grateful for their silence; she didn't want to answer pestering questions. Eventually, the dorm room had become too quiet with the sounds of each sixth year sleeping. Bellatrix checked her clock and made her way down to the Slytherin common room to find it empty.

She was curled up on a couch in front of the fire dressed in her emerald green bathrobe. Her platinum blonde hair, devoid of any coloring, was still a tangled mess and she hadn't bothered with make-up. The area around the couch was littered with wrappers and boxes from various candies and beside her on the sofa was a dozen more assorted sweets. In her hand was her wand which was given the occasional flick to turn the colors of the flames to purple, green, or blue.

Bellatrix missed her sister terribly. If she'd been a Metamorphmagi like her twin and father, her own natural bright and vivid colors would have faded to a depressing gray. All she could do was mope around and cry. As children, they hadn't been separated by choice. But the way Beatrix had looked at her... The hatred in her eyes directed only towards Bella... Lil Bee was never coming back. It was all her fault.

'You stupid girl,' Bella reprimanded herself angrily. 'Out of all the people in the world and you had to push your own twin away!'

A flare of anger surged through her and caused her Hawthorne wand to react. A sudden spell burst forth from the tip of her wand and flew at the fire, causing the flames to burst outward momentarily. She was at a safe enough distance from the hearth that it hadn't burned her outright, though she did receive a strong heat-wave. Several of the wrappers surrounding the couch had caught fire, burned up, and the fires went out. Without any warning, she fell back into a state of tears. No matter how angry she got, the loss of her sister was still greater. Bellatrix couldn't imagine a brighter future...

Xavier couldn't sleep, which was actually a little unusual these days. Ever since he had started sneaking off to the Room of Requirement with Strellie to sleep, the nightmares had ebbed and having her warm body laying next to his was a comfort he hadn't been able to find anywhere else. Despite the rumors that were whispering through the halls they really were just sleeping together, nothing of the more hormone driven persuasion. Lately however, or rather ever since they had returned from Christmas, Strellie had been distant. She was retreating, even from him, something that was crawling under his skin like an itch he couldn't scratch. She had tried opening up to him a few months before, it had something to do with her Father coming back into her life but he wasn't good with big emotional moments and she seemed to be more comfortable with retreating. Earlier that night they had gone to bed in silence and for the first time since they had started their little arrangement he had had a nightmare.

Xavier ran a hand through his sweat slicked hair, causing it to stand on end, as he entered the Slytherin common room. He didn't think he could slink back into the dorm after spending so many nights away but he figured he could curl up in one of the armchairs or try stretching out on one of the couches. It took him a few moments before he realized he wasn't alone. The common room was a little warmer than it usually was this time of night and there was a full blaze in the hearth where there normally would have been smoldering embers. The sound of sobbing hit his ears moments after the heat hit his face.

He froze but for a moment as he contemplated what to do. It was possible that whoever was crying was so caught up in their own issues that they wouldn't have noticed him but that left him with little places to go. To get to the boys dormitory he'd have to pass the couch the sound was coming from. He obviously couldn't stay now that it was clear the room was no long unoccupied. He supposed he could slip back out into the dungeon corridor but then where would he go from there?

With a sigh and a rolling of his cold grey blue eyes he stepped forward directly into the common room and in front of the sobbing mess on the couch. For a moment he didn't recognize her and when he finally did his heart gave a very uncomfortable wrenching sensation. There was a time when he believed Bellatrix Dark was his perfect match. It was possible that he had even loved her but she hated him. For many reasons he wanted his memory back, those two weeks his Grandfather had stolen from him. One of the more pressing ones was remembering what he had said to Bella to end their relationship and make her hate him so much. For a moment he wondered if he could still slip away without being noticed. She was such a wreck anyway he doubted she would even care.

"Yer gunna piss off thee house elves ye know? Burnin thee fire like tha'." It was hard for him to try and not care about her. After all he had Strellie now and she loved him back so far as he could tell. Though she wasn't that different, emotional wreck and all that. He wondered if he'd ever be able to find a stable girl, all the ones he seemed to like were completely mental.

Xavier looked to the singed sweets wrappers, " 'ave a disagreemen' wit thee sweets? I'd be careful if I was ye, some o' 'em figh back." A poor attempt at humor but what else was a sixteen year old boy to do when faced with the sobbing mess of an ex girlfriend?

There was a movement in her peripheral vision that caused her to whip around to see who it was. She had expected a house-elf or a ghost or even nothing at all. Upon seeing an actual person standing there, Bellatrix jumped and let out a gasp simultaneously. She sat up, placed her face in her hands for a moment to get over her shock, and finally looked to see who it was.

Of all the people in the world, Xavier Tawse had to be the one that she found herself alone with. She didn't know what she was feeling. Angry at his presence? Regretful, as had been her most recent feelings towards everyone in school, because they had stopped talking? No. This was a strange, new feeling. ...Was it relief? What in the name of Merlin could be relieving about having her ex-boyfriend seeing her cry? What a ridiculous notion! And then... he opened his mouth.

"Yer gunna piss off thee house elves ye know? Burnin thee fire like tha'."

Her gaze swept from the flames, which were now dying down, to the face of Xavier. He was being rather awkward. She didn't say a word; she just waited. He had to get comfortable with the situation, something she wasn't able to do herself. A memory struck her then. They had both been in the common room late one night. She'd been crying and he'd listened. He'd talked to her. In the end, if she recalled correctly, they had both ended up in tears. Did he remember that? Or had he blocked it out? Her teary blue eyes lingered on his face, searching for any hint that he was the same soft Xavier she'd seen that night... A side that no one else had seen. Well, not at the time. With the way he'd been hanging around Strellie--and if one believed the rumors--surely she'd seen what Bella had. There was a hint of jealousy that tried to boil up in her, but she suppressed it easily. What right did she have to be jealous? After all, that Christmas ball last year...

" 'ave a disagreemen' wit thee sweets? I'd be careful if I was ye, some o' 'em figh back."

Silence. What was she supposed to say? He was trying to make it less awkward between them given their current situation. Bellatrix didn't know what she expected. He was with Strellie, wasn't he? And so much had happened between them last year that they had completely stopped talking. But here he was... She brought her gaze back from the more relaxed flames to study Xavier. He didn't look like he was having a pleasant evening at all, either. Maybe they could just...talk. Bella wiped her tears off, set her wand down, and reached towards the other end of the couch where the March 1st Daily Prophet sat, headlining the news of the St. Mungo's Escape.

"You look like you could use some sweets yourself," she forced her voice to avoid cracking. "Would you like to talk about it?"

That seemed rather straight-forward, even for her. Usually Bellatrix didn't want to get involved with anyone else's pitiful issues, but... Xavier had unintentionally walked in on her in the middle of her own. She wasn't sure she was ready to spill anything yet and certainly not to him. As long as she kept the topic's conversation off her, she wouldn't fall apart in front of him. That's the way she wanted to keep it.

Xavier expected, well he wasn't quite sure what he expected. There was a time when he would have just expected her to jinx him and it would be over with but those days apparently were gone now. In a way he almost missed them, at least then he knew where he stood. Now though, he was so unsure when it came to her. He certainly hadn't expected her to sit up, share her sweets and make this a real heart to heart moment. Did she seriously expect him to just open up to her, just like that? Then again, what was really stopping him? It wasn't like he was talking to Strellie about it and the nightmares had come back . . .

He sat down on the couch where she had indicated and picked up a piece of salt water taffy she had likely gotten from Honeyduke's and swirled it around in his mouth before talking, "Nightmares." He said simply, his cold grey blue eyes on the fire instead of her. For some reason he found it hard to look at her. Perhaps because he was uncomfortable about seeing girl's at their worse, but more likely he'd be struck by all the memories of her. Especially of another night just like this, where she had been in tears and he had poured his heart out to her. He had several nights like that with Strellie but she had been the first to see it, not the first to see him cry mind, unfortunately Ayla still held that honour but the first to see a real side of him that he had denied existed for so long.

He looked down to his hands, remembering what they looked like covered in blood, his own, Strellie's, the wolf's. He could still hear the growl, the echoing crack of the revolver, still feel it jump in his hand. He turned his hands over looking at the gnarled scars on his knuckles. He could still feel the bricks as they split his skin, the rough crude bandages he had wrapped over them, his refusal to get them magically healed. Now they only served as a reminder of what he had lost. If only he could remember why he had been like that, why he had been so angry as to torture himself so, as to throw away a girl like Bella.

"I kill'd summun in thee summer. Beast really, but they say 'e was a man so, there's tha'." He thought back to the trip they had taken in Care of Magical Creatures. The feeling of dread as he looked into the dark soulless eyes of that baby Thestral. The small creature that mocked him, proving that the beast he had killed still counted as a man, "I cin still hear it, thee growls. Feel it's claws, rippin' me skin. Sum nights . . . sum nights I don' pull tha' trigga, I don' kill it, I jus . . . let it kill me instead." He grabbed another taffy and began to chew on it as if he hadn't just revealed a dark secret to the last person in the castle he should have.

His story had left her stunned. Bella had her own dark secrets, but it was nothing compared to having killed someone--or something. No wonder he looked such a mess. Having nightmares of such memories would have driven her mad... She'd have her own wing in St. Mungo's from something like that. Bella noticed he was staring at his hands with a strange and distant expression. The idea crossed her mind  to reach out to him, but she dismissed it quickly by averting her own gaze to the fire. At last, she seemed  to have found her voice.

"Was it a werewolf?"

This time, she locked her gaze on him. If it had been a werewolf and it had bitten him, he'd become one every full moon. Since she didn't pay much attention to him, she wouldn't have noticed if he disappeared around that time of the month. Him being a werewolf wouldn't bother her. She wasn't scared of Xavier. There was no need to be unless he was in wolf form. But she was concerned for him, and more than a little. She couldn't imagine how much harder life would be on him if he'd been turned. From what she understood, Xavier had endured a rough life already. He didn't need more tacked on...

"Aye," He nodded to her bringing his eyes back to the fire. He was painfully aware of her eyes on him. She was staring at him and he couldn't place why. Was she shocked by his story? Scared of him, of what he had managed to do? Or did she think he had been cursed with more than just nightmares? It could be possible, given the fact that he rarely spent any time in the common room anymore, not even at night. He could have been hiding a secret like that but he was beyond thankful that he wasn't. He knew that what little family he still had would completely disown him. Arathorn wouldn't stand for having a werewolf for an heir, his fortune would go to someone else, perhaps as a dowry for Cadance or maybe even passed on to Kyson if he promised to change his name from Cavanaugh to Wentworth. Ironically the only family that would stand by him would likely be the Cavanaughs given that big daddy Cavanaugh was a werewolf.

"I didn' git bit if tha's wha' yer thinkin'." He chanced a glance over at her and instantly wished he hadn't. He wasn't anticipating the almost palpable concern that shone in her eyes for him. It was easier thinking that she hated him, it had allowed him to move on. It was easier to spend his night laying next to Strellie, curling her in his arms if he could believe that his exes hated him.

"We were 'avin' a picnic, by moonligh' suppose ta be all romantic like. I shoulda listen'd, me Grandfatha's servants told me there were wolves in thee woods, I jus thought they were bein' superstitious. I didn' thin' it'd be real till I saw it. Big nasty thin'. It's fur was all matt'd, it's muzzle was scarr'd. It 'ad blood init's fur. Came righ' at 'er, maul'd 'er, I 'ad a gun wit me, a muggle weapon. It took all six shots, was righ' ontoppame when it died, it's breath smelt like rot." He ran his fingers over the scars on his knuckles, "I 'ad ta take 'er ta St Mungo's an' I jus left 'er there. Couldn' stand it. She got hurt cos o' me. We didn' talk fer months afta tha'." He never said her name aloud but he was certain Bella knew who he was talking about, who else could it have been?

"I didn' git bit if tha's wha' yer thinkin'."

Bella exhaled in relief, though she hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. He wasn't a werewolf, thank goodness. As Xavier went through the whole story, she couldn't help but feel jealousy stirring within her that Demetria had been there when he had faced something so terrifying... And what had she done? From the sound of it, nothing. He'd been protecting her. Why did it have to be her?

An unexpected surge of anger coursed through Bellatrix. She stood up suddenly and turned to face the fire, her fury showing in her blue eyes. Strellie, Strellie, Strellie! It was all about her now. It could have been about Bella had they not fought as they had. Her hand gripped her wand tighter; it was slowly starting to respond to her emotions, but she quelled her rage.

'I'm being selfish again,' she thought. This wasn't about him and Strellie. This was about Xavier dealing with something beyond her understanding. They hadn't spoken in a year, unless one counted squabbling and trying to rip each other to shreds. And yet here he was, after having a nightmare, he was talking to her of all people. Strellie wasn't here. That damned Kit Branwell wasn't the one he was telling about this. It was Bella. That had to mean something...right? She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to calm herself. She would not screw this up. The grip on her wand loosened and she set it down on the mantle so as to avoid any future mishaps.

"I'm really sorry," she paused, unsure of how she should address him, "Xavier."

Bella turned around to face him with a rare sympathy she showed to anyone except her sister or Peyton. She cracked her knuckles anxiously as she tried to figure out what to say and do next. It would be better if she was sitting instead of standing there awkwardly. Thus, she sat on the couch again. There was a long, dragged out silence before she finally decided to say anything else.

"It can't be easy for you, going through something like this." Another hesitated pause. Offering to be there for him seemed...sappy. "I could probably..." What could she do to help him? It was times like this when she wished she knew what to say, what to do. And yet she was at a complete loss! Her eyes locked with his, her own full of sorrow. "I'm sorry," was all she could really offer him.

Xavier watched intensely when she burst from her seat to stand in front of the fireplace. He had had a similar outburst all those months ago when he had a confrontation with Strellie. There was no mistaking that she was angry but the motive behind it was a little harder for him to suss out. He kept his eyes on her, studying every little movement, trying to figure her out. It had seemed like forever since he looked at her like this. It had been over a year since the Valentine's Day Ball, the last time the two of them had done anything other than insult or hex each other. There had once been a tenderness between them, one that Xavier had fully embraced but it had gotten soured by his own stupidity, much like any relationship he had tried to nurture. He was beginning to believe he wasn't meant for them.

He couldn't help the smirk that crossed his lips when she spoke his name. It had been so long since he had heard it roll off her tongue. Usually she addressed him by his last name, if he was lucky. She had some rather creative names for him as well, many he had never heard a girl use before. That had only proved to cement the idea that she hated him, after all why wouldn't she? He had made her fall madly in love with him, then through his own cowardice he ran and left her alone, leaving her only a letter to explain what had happened. He still couldn't remember what he had put inside it but he was sure it was no where near as nasty as she seemed to make it out to be.

Xavier narrowed his eyes, knitting his brow when she sat down next to him. She was the Queen of mixed signals. He had no idea what to think at that moment. She looked concerned, sympathetic almost. Sure, he had been through hell and back, had lost his best friend, had gained her back and maybe then some but none of that deserved her sympathy. All of it was due to his own idiocy. If Strellie had actually died that night he would have been just as responsible for her death as he was for the werewolf's.

There seemed to be words hanging in the air, something she was dying to tell him but was holding back. He couldn't figure her out but he did have a feeling, or maybe it was just hope. He looked her straight in the eye, reading between the lines of her actions and hoping that he wasn't about to put his foot in his mouth, "We're not togetha', ye know tha' right?" Once again he didn't need to say her name, she knew who he was talking about. It was true though, as much as it hurt him to say. Strellie was his best friend and he loved her more than he loved most people in his life but neither had really been willing to make a commitment to the other. The words boyfriend, girlfriend, weren't used. They kissed, and it was incredible but there was so much between them that Xavier believed anything more than the closest of friends would ruin them, no matter how much he had wanted that. Lately she had been pulling away. She was hung up on controlling her veela charm and was afraid of what might happen if her father got his hooks in her again. For every wall she put up to keep everyone else out, to try and preserve herself she pulled away from him. He wanted her to let him in but she found it hard and he wasn't exactly the most receptive person either. He had been giving her space, spending his time more so with Cadance than anyone else. He wanted her to figure things out and if that meant they couldn't be together the way he had wanted he would just have to deal with it.

"Look, I'm thee one who shuld be sorry. Fer everythin' tha I eva said, whateva it was, ta make ye hate me so much."