ALWAYS (Harry Potter fanfiction) (Snape fanfiction)

Chapter 24

After they returned to Ottery St. Catchpole, Arabella said goodbye to Mr. Diggory and then looked at Cedric. The feeling of his lips on her seemed like a faint memory, almost like it never happened, he said he loved her, but what did it mean? Was he going to break up with Cho? Were they going to be together now? The way he held her and kissed her in the tent, that boy was different from the one standing in front of her at the moment, this one was cautiously distant, and acted as he had always done it. This boy didn't seemed bothered by Charlie Weasley's obvious flirting like he had been in the World Cup.

"I'll see you at school" Cedric said, he pulled Arabella for a hug, and kissed the top of her head, "I'll owl you the stuff you left at my place" without another word, Cedric turned around and left with his father, leaving a dirty, bleeding, and confused girl behind.

"Come on, let's get you stitched up" Charlie told her, and gently pushed her towards the direction of The Burrow.

Arabella walked with a small limp, but at least it didn't hurt to walk now. Once in The Burrow, after Mrs. Weasley apologized to Fred and George over something and smothered the rest of her kids with hugs, she looked at the state of Arabella, and continued to tell Fred and George they should've taken better care of her. After Arabella told her that she had dueled Death Eaters to protect the Muggle family, Mrs. Weasley smiled and cupped her face with her hands, then continued to hug her tightly.

"You have such a great heart, Arabella, with so much love to give, just try not to put yourself in danger, ok?" Mrs. Wealsey told her.

"I will try, but you know it's not in my nature to keep out of trouble" Arabella laughed.

"Sadly, I know that's true" Mrs. Wealsey sighed.

"Charlie, you've got experience with cuts, why don't you stitch her up?" Mrs. Wealsey asked, rather, ordered Charlie. He nodded and guided Arabella to his and Bill's room.

Arabella had never been inside that room, it was the only room in the house where she had not been in. Charlie motioned Arabella to sit in his bed while he went for some things he needed. The room was probably the same size as the twins' room, and there was a bed in the middle of it, Bill's, Charlie's bed was actually just a cot by the window, it had only been put there while Charlie was there, ever since he left to Romania, it was only Bill's room, until he left to work at Egypt. Charlie came back with a tray and a couple things in it. He awkwardly asked Arabella to take off her jumper, which was shredded and bloody, so he could stitch her up. She was left in a basic spaghetti strap white tank top, which was just as bloodied. Charlie grabbed a bottle of pharmacy alcohol and showed it to Arabella.

"This will sting. I'm gonna pour it in your wound at the count of three...one...tw-" just as he was saying 'two', Charlie just poured easily half of the bottle in her shoulder and arm.

"Fucking shit!" Arabella yelled as she tried to hold her arm still while Charlie dabbed it dry with cotton.

Fred and George came running to see if everything was okay, they found Arabella sitting in the cot, bouncing her leg and hiding her face with her free hand while Charlie tried to stitch her. Ever since she was in Hospital Wing After the Quidditch game, they had never seen Arabella without a long sleeved garment, they tried not to look at the scars in her wrists, they were only that now... scars... but they reminded them of those dark times, when they completely abandoned her and pushed her into depression. They were both ashamed of themselves and didn't like to be reminded. 

"Come on, now, you can hold my hand, squeeze when it hurts, okay?" Fred laughed and sat next to Arabella. She grabbed his hand and from that exact moment, Fred squirmed his face with pain. Apparently, getting stitched was actually something painful. Meanwhile, George watched how Charlie stitched Arabell as quickly as he could. He obviously had done that before.

After twenty centimeters of stitching, Arabella was put together again.  She looked at her scar, just one more to the collection, but at least this one had a cool story behind it, at least she could tell it was because she battled Death Eaters, and she had the scar to prove it.

"Thanks" Arabella breathed out.

"Sure thing, doll" Charlie winked at her and then left to wash his hands.

"You guys saw that too, right?" Arabella asked the twins.

"Yup" they said at the same time.

"I think he might have a crush on you" Fred joked. Arabella giggled.

"He just met me, and I'm sure he has better taste" Arabella shook her head, "can I use your shower, guys?" She said as she looked down at herself, she was full of mud and blood.

Days passed, and as he promised, Cedric owled Arabella the stuff she left at his house. Arabella wrote to him, and asked him about the kiss, what did it mean for them? She received no answer. Could the letter have not arrived? Arabella tried not to think about it and rather concentrated on Charlie's tales about Romania and the dragons. She spent some time with Harry, getting to know him better, developing a closer sibling relationship, but it was not easy, especially for Arabella. Harry had never had a sibling, the closest thing he had to one were Ron and Hermione so he didn't really know if their relationship was a normal sibling relationship. Arabella, on the other hand, had a brother once, they were best friends and while they kept secrets from each other, they were the one who the other turned for support, for laughter, for complaining, for judging others... for everything. Arabella knew how it was like to have a brother of her own flesh and blood, and while she loved Harry with all of her heart, she would kill and die for him but she struggled to not compare Harry with Altan.

"We have this young Chinese Fireball, we rescued her from poachers, and she doesn't really trust us, so we have to stun her to heal her injuries" Charlie explained her, as he showed her some photos.

"Have you tried just letting her get used to your presence? Just do things, let her get used to you being there, she could start to trust you, showing her that you won't harm her" Arabella shrugged.

"We just usually try to go and leave rather quickly, so we don't get eaten... but I'm just gonna try to get her to trust me enough to get close to her eggs... without her, we'll have to use the Hungarian Horntail... trust me, you don't want to see that" Chalie laughed nervously, Arabella squirmed her eyes at him. 

"Use her? What for?"

"I probably shouldn't have said that..." Charlie rubbed the back of his neck and tried to look away.

"Now you're sounding like Hagrid, come on, Charlie..." Arabella whined.

"Okay, okay..." Charlie checked there was no one around them, luckily, they were all outside, degnoming the garden, "there is going to be an... event, at school, it hasn't been celebrated because of the high death toll but they kind of fixed it..." Charlie told Arabella about the Triwizard Tournament, and told her that one of the challenges would involve dragons, that was as far as he knew... then he made her do an unbreakable vow with him, promising not to tell anyone about the tournament until the school announced it.

"If your mother finds out we did this, she's going to kill us both!" Arabella angrily muttered.

"How would they know?" Charlie smirked, Arabella raised up her hand to show him her brand new golden scar.

"They're gonna know" Arabella countered. Charlie proceeded to put on a leather glove.

"How would they know?" Arabella huffed and went to get a sweatshirt to cover as much as she could the gold line across her hand. When she was coming down, she encountered Fred and George.

"Hey, Bella, you're missing out all the fun" Fred told her, casually putting his weigh on the railing and resting his free hand in Arabella's hip, "isn't it a bit too warm to be wearing a sweatshirt?"

"I was on my way down to you but I decided to wear something that covers my... uhm... my scars, your parents don't know about them and I would like to keep it that way" Arabella lied... by telling the truth. She did not put the sweatshirt on because of the scars in her wrists, but she didn't want Mr. and Mrs. Weasley learning about her scars.