The first day of classes were over and Xavier couldn't be more relieved. He had always been engaged by his studies. He was a good student and in past years had been getting straight O's. He was hoping to get straight O's this year again but coming back to class has proved that he had just lost interest. He had actually lost interest in many things. Classes were boring, his friends seemed to annoy him, he couldn't be bothered trying to pick a fight with Peyton and he had even snubbed Bella when she tried to comfort him. Somehow all of those things just didn't seem to matter anymore.

Xavier was sitting on one of the green armchairs changing the bandages on his hands. As he peeled back the bandage of his left hand he winced, the dried blood on the cloth had torn away some of the scabbing causing his knuckles to bleed again. He pulled out his wand and tapped it to his knuckles stopping the bleeding but doing nothing to heal the wounds themselves. He had refused to let anyone look at his hands or go to the Healer once he had gotten to school. His hands had been like this since the holidays. He had been fighting so much at his Uncle's pub that Cin had actually sent him home. Back at the family manor in Montross, Xavier had taken to punching anything he could find which led to even worse injuries. Since coming back to school he had kept his hands in bandages, taking them off only to check for infection and to work in his punching bag. Usually he would have wrapped his hands when boxing but there was something about the pain of his mangled hands that made him feel whole. The pain was something real and something he could focus on instead of the empty soul destroying feeling of abandonment. He had always had abandonment issues from his father leaving but now knowing why his father had done it just made him feel worse.

Xavier lifted his cool grey eyes to his surroundings. The dark gloomy atmosphere of the Slytherin common room matched how he was feeling on the inside. He wondered where everyone was, where his 'friends' were, wondering - with his new disinterest in everything - if they would still be his friends much longer.

A bit of wind lazily twisted it's way between Demitria's fingers as she lay on her stomach in her dorm. The petite girl sighed deeply. Christmas vacation had been a total disaster and had left her with a sour taste. If she ever got her hands on Jaska's bitch of a fiance...
 
Elf'fiskii, the Russian's Pygmy owl, jumped onto Demitria's shoulder and pecked at her ears, efficiently distracting her from all her disturbing thoughts. "Get off," She growled, flipping onto her back.
 
The tiny bird fluttered into the air and let out an indignant hoot.
 
"Shut up. I know I shouldn't be moping alone in the dungeons, but I really don't want to deal with a gaggle of snobs tonight."
 
Another hoot.
 
"I am not a snob... I know who I am and I'm not afraid to show it, but-"
 
Demitria cut off and looked her mouse with wings straight in his bright yellow eyes. "I'm talking to my owl. I'm certifiably insane. Jaska and Katrin aren't even married yet and that fanatical witch is already pushing everyone off their rockers."
 
The brown owl puffed up and began preening himself.
 
Strellie's bright jade eyes dramatically rolled. "I forget that you aren't as smart as you look."
 
She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror before walking out of the empty dorm into an emptier hallway. Unlike many girls, she didn't need to look in the mirror. She knew she was naturally pretty, so checking her hair and makeup every five minutes was just a waste of time. Yet at that moment, the biggest reason she didn't want to look was because she was afraid she wouldn't recognize the person staring back. The "Light of the Dungeons" just wasn't shining that day and hadn't been since Christmas. There was nothing more she wanted to do than to go back to her home in Wales and just bake with her Mat' and play with Minx's kittens. But no, she was stuck at Hogwarts with nothing to look forward too. At least she was away from the Lithuanian Terror.
 
An idea struck Demitria and as an afterthought, she darted back into her room and grabbed her piano music. There was no one to see her leave and she doubted anyone would start entering the dorms for another hour, leaving her with an open time block to run to the Room of Requirement inconspicuously.
 
The tiny Russian began humming and her spirits automatically lifted. The simple thought of playing again made her practically rejoice out loud.
 
Her mood darkened when she walked into the common room and saw another person. All she saw was a silhouette, but the firelight illuminated bloody bandages. She winced. Xavier Tawse. She had noticed his hands
throughout the day, but had assumed the damage wasn't bad. After all, they were at Hogwarts with one of the best healers in the U.K.
 
Strellie’s first instinct was to slip away quietly, but that would do no good. Xavier was a Slytherin after all and had most definitely heard her enter the room. She slid over to where he was seated and looked straight into the fire. It wasn’t her favorite element, but she had a respectful tolerance of it.
The tiny blonde’s eyes flickered over at her classmate. “How were the holidays?” She softly said. She didn’t want to break the comfortable darkness, but the silence was tense. 

Xavier had heard the sound of someone moving around the common room but was making a point of ignoring them. With his back to them he had no idea who they were but there were plenty of Slytherins he didn't want to see right now. Callum would likely get him irritated, he wasn't in the mood to fight with Bella or deal with Maeve and he certainly didn't want Noriko to see him like this. The poor little girl idolized him, there was nothing worse than seeing your idol at their lowest and Xavier was certainly at his lowest. So instead he started to examine his hands closer wondering if that was his imagination or if he really could see his bone exposed from the amount of skin that had been torn off his knuckles.

When Demitria came around to the front of him he let his cold grey blue eyes rise long enough to identify her. At least she wasn't on his 'people he didn't want to see' list. Streilla had always been one of those girls that seemed too nice and bubbly to be in Slytherin. He had enough interaction with her since they were both Slytherins and both fifth years but he wouldn't consider her as running in the same circles as him but maybe that was a good thing. Lately Xavier didn't think he actually wanted to be running in his circle anyway.

When she enquired about his holidays Xavier let out a dry laugh lifting his face to hers and letting a dark smirk curl his lips, "Smashin', absolutely fantastic. Found out me good fer nuthin fatha left me because he already had anotha son that was betta than me an' made him happier an' turns out this betta son is that feckin' Ravenclaw prat Peyton." Xavier was slightly surprised with himself that he had actually just told Streilla that. He hadn't even told Bella about it yet. Perhaps it had something to do with Bella's connection to Peyton. The two were practically friends after the Care of Magical Creatures midterm they had to work on together. Streilla on the other hand, as far as Xavier knew, had nothing to do with Peyton other than sharing a few classes with their fellow fifth year.

"How bout yers?"

As soon as the question slipped out of her mouth, Demitria cringed. She didn’t know why she had asked. It had just seemed like the most generic thing one could ask, it being their first day back, but it was stupid, extremely stupid.

Generic questions usually are asked back and answering was one thing the Russian did not want to do. She was already concocting a few white lies to mix in with her story when Xavier answered in a low, harsh tone. The thing that stunned Strellie about her fellow Slytherin’s tone though, was that it imparted truth. Absolute truth was an uncommon thing to hear in the Slytherin dungeons.
 
By the time he had finished his short rant, all thoughts of generic questions and her own stupidity had flown away. She knew Peyton. He was a pleasant Ravenclaw that she had a cordial relationship with. It didn’t extend past there. If someone was nice to her, she’d be nice back. That was how, Demitria Strelnikov ticked. She looked at the battered and torn young man in front of her, with his bleeding hands, and tried to make a connection with the Quidditch-obsessed Ravenclaw.

She couldn’t. The pieces just didn’t fit together.

Then karma, life’s favorite tool, smacked Demitria in the face. Yup, there it was. Now she didn’t know how to respond. She could still lie, but lying now would be the same as smacking him in the face.

“Honestly, I was just up in my room thinking about how terrible it was, but now-“she scoffed, “it seems pretty petty. All that happened was that my brother’s fiancé made our lives Hell. She wouldn’t stop trashing my other two brothers and kicking the cat. The absolute worst part though, was that bit…witch stabbing my Mat’, I’m sorry, mother in the back.  Just because we don’t live in a manor anymore doesn’t mean we are any less than she is.” Demitria answered candidly. The last part just slipped out with the rest. Even after living for seven years in England, her Russian accent was still largely evident. She had also been speaking Russian all break, so coming back to school and speaking English always took a few days of transition.

She noticed Xavier staring at his hands. She took a deep breath and wondered if his hands looked anything like how her back had looked those many years ago. The scars still ached.

She dropped to the floor and sat cross legged on the ground. She turned her gaze back to the fire.

“Shouldn’t you have those looked at?” Demitria asked quietly, her jade eyes distant.

Although he didn't lift his cold grey blue eyes to hers he still let a smirk curl his lips. As surprised as he was about his own honesty he was even more surprised at hers. He had known Demetria well enough being in the same house and year but he never expected her to be so open with him, even after he had been so open with her. Perhaps he had judged her wrong. He had always thought that she was one of those flighty in the moment kind of girls. She always had a smile on her face. He never expected her to be the kind of girl that had problems of her own, something in her own life that would make her be spiteful and angry. It was liberating actually, to see her in such a light.

"Ye didn' hafta tell me tha' ye know?" It may have seemed petty to her but it was something Xavier could relate to. Although he had no real siblings he understood what it was like to be persecuted, looked down upon for not having a normal family. He had a runaway father, an Ex-Azzie Uncle and a grandfather that died in Azkaban and now an illegitimate brother and sister, there were plenty of reasons for people to look down on him. So while he didn't understand how she felt about a woman like that marrying her brother, he could definitely relate to how she felt about being betrayed and judged by her.

He glanced down at his hands again, "Probably." He took the time to wrap them up once more before speaking again, "Me mam an' me Gran tried all break ta heal 'em but I wouldn' let 'em. They help ye know? Feelin' thee pain, seein' 'em bleed, it all helps make it real. Lets me know I'm still real, tha' I'm still . . . human." He glanced up at her doubting that she'd understand what he meant, "It probably sounds morbid, I know."

Demitria, sitting crosslegged on the floor infront of the couch, looked over her shoulder at her Housemate. He was looking down. Still, she couldn't help but send a small and sad smile at him. Even if he didn't see it, she knew he needed it. Her medium length blonde hair gave a rustle as she moved her head back towards the fire. Many people thought her very flighty and she assumed that Xavier probably had too. Somewhere deep inside, it was always painful to know even when she knew it was for the best. One of the first lessons she had learned from Taras was to never give too much away. Even after her father's arrest and their move to Wales, his shadow haunted her. Every smile was to try to push away the rigid structure she had grown up in. Every bell-like laugh was an attempt to break free. Sometimes, she thought she could never be free, but enough of her had grown up and away that she could try. 

"Just because I didn't need to be doesn't mean I couldn't be," She shrugged.

She heard the bandages on Xavier's hands being re-wrapped. There was a minute or two of a warm, comfortable silence before he spoke again. Her face fell into a frown, but she wasn't suprised. Her Mat' had done something similar when they were still living in Russia. It wasn't as drastic, but every night, Darya Strelnikov would tell Demitria seven things that caused her emotional or physical pain in the day to remind them that they were not unfeeling monsters like the Strelnikov patriarch. The practice had stopped when Strellie had fallen into a coma and had never been discussed since, but the Russian still remembered it.

"I can't say I completley understand, especially why you keep them so raw, but I think I know why you do it. For me, scars are enough. But they don't remind me that I'm alive. They remind me I can survive." She turned around to meet Xavier's eyes head on. She jumped slightly as she wasn't expecting to make contact with the blue-grey orbs. Taking a deep breath, she continued. She conciously touched the scar on her cheek. "I have a lot more where this came from."

For four years Xavier had built strong walls around himself. On the outside was the smooth, charming young man who could wrap anyone around his fingers. He had his teachers in his pockets, he made friends with all the right people and he was seen with only the prettiest of girls. On the inside was a vile, horrible monster that picked away at the foundations, warping his sturdy walls without him even noticing. Cracks, tears, windows and doors were being made in his walls without him knowing. A crack to let Ayla into his life, a window that let the beast out on Maddie, a door that accepted Bella into his inner sanctum and a tear that caused everything to crumble to ashes when he found out who Peyton really was. Without his walls, without his protection, Strellie was free to see the real him and he was seeing her without having to keep up his guise.

He slinked out of the armchair and joined her on the floor next to the fire. As her eyes turned to him he jolted as well having not expected her to make such direct contact with him. They were essentially strangers and yet here they were talking secrets and truths that no one else knew about, "I cin understan' tha'." He nodded looking into the fire to make sure he didn't get too lost in her eyes, or too curious about her scar. He didn't need to be making her uncomfortable.

"Ye mind me askin' wha' made yer scars?" Xavier had never really took notice to the small scars that were on her face. They were small enough to be overshadowed by her earthy beauty and to be honest with girls like Bella, Neely and Maeve to keep his attention he hadn't spent all that much time studying her. The other scars she spoke of must have been in a more private, not to be seen by everyday folk, area. 

Demitria’s hand dropped from her face suddenly. It folded with her other hand and she looked away from Xavier. He had already looked away before the question was asked, but the internal shock the question caused her to gape for a few extra seconds. Talking about her scars in context was one thing. Asking what caused them was a whole different story. Not once in her entire Hogwarts career had someone asked her where her scars were from. Not many had even seen her other scars except for the one on her face and they had never asked. Not once.

She looked straight into the fire, afraid of what her pure jade eyes would give away. One side of her was telling her to just say it. Another was taking a History of Magic textbook and attempting, in vain, to beat it down. A third just sighed and though it wasn’t happy, it backed away and told her she had to tell sometime or later.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times without words coming out. Then, she finally found a sound.

“I know you are well aware I’m from Russia. That fact is obvious, but what you don’t know is I’m from Northern Russia, very near the Arctic Sea. In that same region is a forest very similar to our forbidden forest. The difference is, the forest in which I was raised, the Frozen Forest, was hundreds of miles deep. Our manor was at the very heart. I was a naïve child. I didn’t think anything that was near the Manor could harm me. And nothing truly dangerous does.”
A cynical smile appeared on the tiny girl’s face and a little chuckle escaped her. “ Crups. Every scar on my body was caused by those relatively harmless, god damn creatures. My best friend Tanya was a muggle who worked in the kitchens and we liked playing in the forest. One night, our luck ran out and the wild crups tried to kill her. I knew they wouldn’t kill me, so I tried to cover her, but they kept tearing at my back. I finally mustered enough strength to tell them off, but I had already lost too much blood. I feinted and was in a coma for four months. The same month I woke up, Taras, my father, was arrested and sent to Adoverste, the Russian Azkaban. All of our lands were seized, so my mother and I moved to Wales for me to heal. The scars are still there, though.”

Her eyes were moist, but her jaw was set firm. “All the scars except for this little one under my eye are on my back. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but I don’t wear anything that shows lower than my shoulders. If I do, I cover it with a small jacket.” She took off her robe and underneath, she was wearing a little black and green dress. It had a small V behind the neck that showed the top of the old wounds. They stood out like beacons against her pale skin.  She didn’t bother putting her robe back on. There was nothing to hide in this strange conversation.

And that fact scared her beyond words.

His eyes were drawn back to her while she told her tale. Somehow he had been expecting something else, perhaps something worse but that didn't make what happened any less terrible. He remembered being young and stupid and thinking you were invincible just because you were someplace you knew, somewhere you were familiar with. He hadn't had any incidents as dramatic or tragic as hers but he could remember spending a few rare times in one of his grandfather's menageries getting close to all the really dangerous animals and not caring because it was his grandfather's shop and he figured nothing could happen as long as Grandpa Wentworth was there.

He tried to think of something to say to her, something that would be comforting but nothing came to mind. He knew now that they were no longer strangers and in a strange turn of events they now knew more about they others deepest darkest secrets than perhaps anyone else in school. He hadn't told Bella about Peyton but he hadn't hesitated in telling Strellie and he had a feeling the story she had just told him had never been uttered to another Hogwarts student before.

When she removed her robe to show off her low back dress something in Xavier stirred. His cold grey blue eyes ran down the edge of her dress to where the top of her scars sat. Without any thought to it or any permission given Xavier moved closer to her and ran his rough fingertips over that backline until they were resting on the top of her scars, touching that hidden part of her that she hadn't shown to anyone else, "How badly did it hurt?" His voice was soft this time without any anger or snide undertones. He was curious and completely drawn to her at that moment.

The Russian believed that the twisting forms of the fire were burned into her eyes permentantly. When she blinked, she could still see the shadows, creating black tendrils in her mind's eye.

Yet she kept watching it. She couldn't bring herself to turn away from the hearth to look at the young man beside her. She had already said so much, that if she were to look him in the eye, she was afraid everything would spill out. But truthfully, hadn't it already? She had already told him of the hatred she held for her future sister-in-law. She had already told him of her father being imprisoned. She had already told him of her scars. She stopped her thoughts for a moment. She hadn't told him everything. She had told him secrets, yes, but not everything. She hadn't told him of what made her immesurably happy or what she missed at home. She hadn't told him of her guilty homesickness of Russia and the vast Stone Manor where she had always felt like a queen.

No. There were still some things that were hers. Even her Mat' didn't know about her terrifying longing for the ancient Strelnikov Manor. Those things were safe... at least for the moment.

Demitria was torn from her silence, by a displacement of air and then fingertips on her scars. She flinched heavily and her head snapped around to look at Xavier in amazement. She let in a deep breath, to calm her racing pulse. Someone touching the scars that marred her back was so strange to her that it was poignant. She didn't know whether she should stay put, move away, or what?

Xavier's words saved her from deciding for or against moving away. Instead, she simply looked away from her housemate and back into the fire. "Sometimes. Mostly, they're just sore. They used to hurt so bad that some days, I could barely move. But it's been over seven years. Over time, they just healed themselves, something the healers at the Russian Hospital could never do. Sometimes, when I was younger, I never thought they would go away and I desperatley wanted them to. They still haven't. They can't. The pain will someday go away, but the scars will become a part of you." 

While her eyes were transfixed with the fire Xavier's were solely focused on the rippled torn skin that marred her back. Even years later it was easy to see how violent it had been and he wasn't surprised that they still hurt. If the skin ever regrew on his knuckles he imagined his hands would be the same. As long as he could still punch things he was happy though, there were plenty of things he could do in his life if he couldn't hold a wand properly.

He felt a need to comfort her, to hold her and make her feel better, to take the pain away from her even if just for a moment. He had even leaned forward before he was stopped by an image of Bella. A large part of him still loved her and wanted to be with her and have things go back to the way they were but he had changed so much over the holidays he had no idea if that could actually happen now. Yet had he truly changed enough that he was willing to give his affections to another girl without even thinking twice about what Bella might think of him?

He sighed and leaned back pulling his hands away from her again. The last thing he needed was to have Bella walk in on him intimately touching some girl's bare skin. He tried to focus back on her instead of the wrath his girlfriend was bound to bring down on him, "What do you do about the pain?" Xavier embraced pain, he always had but he had no idea how other people dealt with it. He knew his mother had often dealt with it by downing a bottle of firewhiskey, or at least she had after his Dad first disappeared. Since they moved back in with Grandma Anna she had cut back on the drinking.

Demitria's skin shuddered every time Xavier's cold fingers or warm gaze fell on her back. She had never been more terrified in her life even though it seemed her housemate wasn't disgusted by the criss-crossing scars. She closed her eyes and continually fought the urge to move away.

Suddenly, the cold fingers were replaced by the warm air coming from the fireplace and Demitria took her first breath in minutes, even though it had seemed like hours. She had never been a coward, no, far from it, but the urge to run away to fight another day was overpowering. When her mind finally caught up with the rest of her, she realized that her fingers were twisting the pages of music on her lap. Horrified, the blonde Russian's OCD kicked in and she began to smooth out the edges of the folds.

"What do you do about the pain?"

The very simple words made her smile. The answer to every problem Demitria had ever had was in her hands. Her hands which were diligently smoothing out the folds of her heart. It was the easiest thing Xavier had asked her to answer all night. 

"Music. I've played the piano for so many years that there is no other answer. Whether I'm sad, frustrated, angry, anything, I run to the piano and just play. Everything evaporates and I'm left with black and white problems to which every dissonance resolves. It'll always be beautiful in the end."

It was so simple to say. There was no other answer. Then Strellie stiffened. How could she have played the piano in Hogwarts? There were no pianos anywhere except for the one in the Room of Requirement, but that was her secret. If anyone else found out, it would become harder and harder to avoid the after curfew patrols.

Xavier had lazily leaned back onto his bandaged hands watching as the Slytherin in front of him lit up. He cocked his head to the side as he studied her. He didn't think he had ever seen her look so happy. He suddenly understood. While he dealt with his pain in violent often damaging ways she expressed herself in a more angelic, peaceful way but in the end they were still using outlets to vent out their frustrations and angers.

"I wasn't aware Hogwarts had a music room." He gave her a soft smirk. He knew there was a choir, but they usually practiced in the Great Hall between meal times, after classes. If they ever had piano accompaniment it was because one of the Professors who supervised the club had conjured it. He doubted the fifth year was able to conjure a piano whenever she liked.

He sighed again and looked into the fire, "So cin I hear ye play sometime?" He glanced back at the girl wondering how she'd take such a request. From the way she had spoken he assumed that she was rather private about her music, preferring to be alone when she played. That coupled with the fact that she was likely using some secret piano that not many students knew about he doubted she'd actually let him in on the secret. It was worth a try though. If she agreed it showed how much she actually trusted him, after all he doubted she would have shown anyone else her scars like that. If she refused it just proved she was normal.