The secrets of Rowan Khanna (Y6 spoilers)

Small steps (Chapter 14)

It had been two weeks, and slowly but surely Rowan was easing back into life at Hogwarts. She was still scared, still frightened that some members of R that hadn't been caught were lurking right around the corner, but at least she could talk to her friends again...
Friends... she had never thought that they'd still want to be her friends, but they did...
They had tried their best to catch her up on the lessons she had missed in the last year.
Rowan felt a tiny bit better, having caught up on everything. And she appreciated her friends help. Everyone's help, even though not every body seemed to know fully what they were doing. 

"And then you just need to add a little bit of that stuff and you're done!" Barnaby said while adding a drop of dew into his potion. He was smiling at Rowan, so happy to have her here and listening to him. His newest mission was to make her smile, to make her happy. Because since she had come back, he hadn't seen her smile. And she had such a nice smile, it would be a pity if she never smiled again...
For now, his efforts had been fruitless.
Not even a little smirk he had seen, even though he had gone to great length.

Suddenly, his cauldron started bubbling. Confused he looked into it, only to have the mixture blow up right in his face. Rowan, that had also decided to take a look was hit by it as well.
Her glasses were all black now, she couldn't see a thing.
Barnaby laughed and grabbed her glasses, and cleaned them on his robe. Afterwards, he placed them back on her nose. "There you go, all better."
Nonie that had previously not wanted to interrupt Barnaby's attempts scooted closer to them.
She said that she would show Rowan, because this was not the right method.
Rowan cleared her throat, asking if maybe she should just ask Penny. Nonie wasn't very good at potions either, so she doubted she would be of much help. Of course, she didn't say it like that, instead she just declined politely. Then she focused on what Professor Snape was doing.
Nonie and Barnaby looked at each other. It was probably for the better, to be honest... the two of them were not the best at this. There was a time where just the two of them were paired to brew potions together, but that only lasted briefly. Professor Snape could not take more cauldrons exploding and erupting in his classroom, so he assigned them new partners rather quickly.

After class during lunch break Hazel talked to Rowan. She told her how much fun she was having, how great the classes were, and how much she liked the teachers.
Rowan listened to all of what she had to say, only sometimes interjecting to ask something.
Hazel looked at her big sister, wondering if she was okay. Whenever she asked, Rowan said that she was, but she doubted that was the truth. Rowan hadn't really shared anything with her, ever since that night where she had heart pains... her sisters friends didn't know anything either, Rowan didn't really share what happened with anyone... she wasn't ready to talk about everything that happened, about what she was feeling... Hazel worried about her keeping everything bottled up, that she would just explode eventually...
So when she left her sister again to go to class, she was quite worried.

Later that day, Barnaby continued with his plan to make Rowan smile.
He brought her to the care of magical creatures class.
There were Cruppies and Puffskein everywhere.
It was his masterpiece, and it would surely make her smile. After all, who could be unhappy while surrounded by fluffy Puffskein and energetic yet affectionate Cruppies?
He wasted no time to sit down and start playing with them.

Rowan looked around, at all the cuteness right in front of her.
A cute little Cruppy snuggled up to her leg. She couldn't resist picking it up and hugged it.
Barnaby had been right, you could not feel sad around a bunch of cute creatures.
But Rowan actually wasn't sad at all. She was incredibly frightened.
Anxious because of R and Rakepick... she knew she shouldn't be, she knew she was safe as long as she stayed in Hogwarts walls... but in her head, she still felt unsafe, like she wanted to flee... but she wasn't even sure what she was fleeing from. She was safe, why couldn't she get that into her head? Safe, it was over! She wasn't in that place anymore, she wasn't!