I glanced at him, "You know you didn't have to do that, don't you?"
"Of course I had to, did you really think I could ever leave you like that?"
"I meant bringing me all the way up to my dorm." I spoke softly while staring at the ground.
"Ow"
I got seated on my bed as an awkward silence filled the room.
"I just have to ask this", Enzo broke the silence, "what was going on in there?".
"Oh, it was nothing. Just some dizziness."
"Faye, please be honest" he spoke desperately.
"I already told you, it was nothing serious."
"For fucks sake, that was not just some dizziness."
"Enzo.."
"You know how scared I was? I thought something really bad had happened to you, and that's NOT nothing serious!"
"I'm so, so sorry I scared you, but you have to believe me. I'm fine, and if you leave now you might even be in time for your next class."
"I don't care about my next class, Faye. I care about you! How come you don't understand that? "
"Hey Enzo, please just go to your next class, I don't want you to get in any more trouble because of me. And I could really use some sleep now anyway."
"Pfff...Okay, I'll go. For now. But I'll come back later to go to detention together."
"Looking forward to it." I grinned.
He was about to leave as Luna walked in. She gave him a curious glare and nodded to him. In return Enzo greeted her with a smile and then left the room.
"What a good-looking boy", she remarked amazed.
"Surprised?" I questioned jokingly.
"Oh not at all, are you two..."
"No no no no no, we're just best friends" I cut her off.
She sat down on her bed "Ow okay. Is everything alright though? You look a little off."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little dizzy."
She stood up and walked towards me. Then she sat down next to me.
"Luna, you really don't have to..."
Ignoring me she grabbed my hand with hers and closed her eyes. Her hands were a little cold, but a nice kind of cold. We stayed like that for a while. I didn't really know what to do, she was holding my hand very tightly and I felt a little uncomfortable. After a while she opened her eyes and a single tear rolled over her cheek.
"You are in such pain." she spoke softly, not letting go of my hand, "Why are you in such pain?".
I just looked at her, astounded. What had she just done?
"W...what do you mean?"
"You're aura it's so...dark."
Her words scared me, more than I liked to admit. "What are you talking about... I'm fine."
Luna pulled me in for a tight hug and whispered in my ear, "No, you're not, and you know what, that's okay. We should all be allowed to fall apart sometimes, including you, Faye. You don't have to be strong all the time"
Hearing those words I couldn't hold back my tears anymore, I had been doing that for way too long. "You know what it feels like to live without a purpose, to go through your days without looking forward to anything. Every morning I wake up and practically have to drag myself out of bed. Sometimes I even think...t...that everyone w...would be better off w...ithout me. And that terrifies me more than anything in the world. 'Cause I don't want to live like that. I don't want to be like that. At first I thought it was just a phase, that I would get through this. But it isn't. I'm not getting through this. What if it never ends. What if my whole life I stay like this. I'm just so tired. I'm so, so tired."
Luna looked at me and as she did so, she didn't see Faye Deveraux standing in front of her. She saw a girl, broken to the core.
"Well, then you must get some sleep." she whispered while tucking me in my bed.
---------------------------------------------------------------
I had no idea of time, nor did I know where I was, when all of a sudden a beam of light aggravated the headache I got from all the crying I did. I saw a tall figure standing in front of the window and as I focused on the vague figure I realized it was Enzo. He had just opened the curtains, hence the incidence of light.
"What are you doing here?" I asked him.
"Detention. You tend to forget that a lot, don't you" he laughed. "Come we've got to go, it took forever to wake you up."
I don't know if it was his presence or the catching up on my sleep, but the bad feeling lessened a little.
"Hey, I just woke up, a little sympathy here please."
I tried to stand up but got dizzy due to my low blood pressure. So I was forced to sit down again.
"We haven't got all day" Enzo reminded me.
"You're really starting to annoy me." I snapped.
"Mean"
I stood up giving him a scowl as I walked to the mirror. Standing in front of it I let out a little squeak. My hair was pointing towards every direction, my eyes had bags underneath them that made me question if I had even slept at all the past week. I had forgotten to take of my clothes before falling asleep, so they were completely wrinkled. And I had a pimple. A big fat pimple on my chin.
"I look horrible!" I exclaimed.
"I think you look good." Enzo said.
"You think this looks good?? I'll never trust you're judgment again, ever!"
"Now don't be so dramatic."
"Dramatic? There's a pimple on my chin. A big pimple, with a white head. I'm disgusting. I'll need at least 20 minutes to make this look somewhat decent."
"You'll get five."
"I'll need fifteen."
"You'll get five"
"Ten?"
"Five"
"Ughh, fine. There's no way to reason with you, is there?"
"My proudest trait" Enzo grinned.
I started getting ready. I combed my hair and put a little gel in it to calm it down. Next I covered my pimple and the bags under my eyes with a little make-up. I was quite happy with the result. And finally I went to the bathroom to change clothes.
"Are you almost done? It's already been six minutes." Enzo yelled from the other room.
"Yeah, I'm done" I said walking out of the bathroom.
"Wow, speaking of a metamorphosis" Enzo said jokingly.
"Why, thank you. And shouldn't we be leaving soon? I did need a minute more to get ready." I said and we left.
When we arrived professor Umbridge was already awaiting us. Just perfect.
"Well there you are, finally. Get seated right there. I have an assignment for you."
I sat down at a desk at the back of the room and Enzo came and sat next to me. I was mentally preparing for the work we were about to receive when Umbridge started to talk: "So, you both know why you are here, I assume. We both nodded. "Okay then, this hour you'll write the sentence 'From now on I will stay at an appropriate distance from the opposite sex' on a paper and at the end of the hour you will submit this.
I was about to take a pen out of my pencil case when she pointed out to me that for this assignment she would give us her own pen. I thought that was kind of weird. First of all that she would just let us off that easily. Writing a couple of words on a piece of paper as a punishment, not her style. And second of all giving us her own pencils.
She gave us our pencils and a piece of paper and I noticed that mine was a bit different than Enzo's but I ignored that fact. She sat down at the front of the class while watching us with a big smile plastered on her face. That woman was mentally ill.
I started my assignment. I was only one line in as I felt something itching on my hand. I wanted to scratch but the itching became burning and slowly but surely I saw my assignment being engraved in my hand. I let out a cry and Enzo quickly turned his head in my direction. As he noticed what was going on anger grew on his face, great anger. In fact I hadn't seen him this mad since my sister had broken his favorite toy when we were eight.
"Are you out of your mind!" he yelled.
"I don't know what you're talking about, young man. Care to enlighten me?"
"Oh you sure as hell now what I'm talking about. You can't just do that to her."
"I'm authorized to punish students in any way of my choosing."
"Then tell me, why don't I get the same punishment as her. We both did the same thing wrong. If anything I was in the wrong here, I told her to lay her head on my shoulder."
"Well, I thought you would be grateful. But as you wish. Miss Deveraux, give your pen to mr Berkshire."
"Enzo, you don't have to do this. I'm completely fine, it doesn't even hurt that much" I tried to change his mind, but he was determined.
"Just let me do this, I hate to see you hurt." he whispered.
"But I'm not hurt."
"Faye, please?"
I finally gave in and handed him the pen. I didn't want to but I knew Enzo wouldn't let this go very soon.
As he started his assignment he tried his best to hide that it was hurting. And I have to admit some people might have believed him, but not me. I knew him far too well for that. I noticed that his facial expression occasionally slipped from his façade but so minor that it was barely perceptible.
Actually it hurt more to see him in pain than to be in actual pain myself. And every whimper that came out of his mouth felt like a stab to my stomach.
And thus began the most excruciating hour of my life. I kept on looking at the clock but every time I did no more than just five minutes had passed. Time went by slowly, at one point I was even convinced that the hands of the clock had stopped moving.
And the worst thing of all? That horrible woman just sat there, enjoying every last minute of it.
‐-----------------‐---------------------------------------------------------------
Finally detention was over and Enzo and I got out of that classroom as fast as we could. We walked through the corridor in silence, it was not a comfortable silence nor was it awkward. It was more like a sad silence. We didn't know what to say after what had just happened. I felt guilty for the pain Enzo had to go through and I don't know what Enzo was feeling but reading his expression it didn't seem joyful.
"I know a place." I spoke after a couple of minutes. "Want to go there?"
"Sure" he said.
I brought him to a spot right behind the ravenclaw stand next to the quidditch field. No one ever came there, except for when there was a match of course. I always came to this spot when I was feeling down, when I wanted to get away from everyone and everything. It was like my safe haven. There weren't many places in hogwarts that I liked, but this place I loved. It was so quiet and peaceful, you could hear the birds chirp, the water running, the wind howling and sometimes I swore I could even hear the clouds moving.
"So this is your place?" Enzo questioned.
"This is my place."
"Is it special that you bring me here? Or is this the place you bring all your guys?" he laughed.
"You're special, Enzo. I have never brought anyone here, no one has ever been worth it. Untill I met you." I joked.
Enzo took off his robes and spread them on the grass then he lay on his self-invented blanket. He gave me an inviting glance and accepting it I placed my robes next to his and laid down beside him. We were lying close together but our bodies weren't touching, except for our fingertips.
We both stared at the clouds, lying on our backs. In the blend of white, I could distinguish some figures.
"That cloud looks like a dragon" I said while pointing at the sky.
"No it doesn't. It looks like a frog on a bicycle."
"You have to look at it from a different perspective." I said while taking his head and turning it in the right direction. "Can you see it now?" I asked.
"No, still a frog on a bicycle."
"I think you're looking at the wrong cloud." I placed my head right next to his, closing the space between us. I took his hands and put them in the air. Then I formed a frame with his fingers. "Look through this."
He squinted his eyes and focussed on the clouds it looked like he was deciphering every little detail that was to be noticed, then he shifted his focus to me. He looked at me. Really looked at me. Not like most boys do, like I was the prey and they the predator. No, he looked at ME. At Faye Deveraux.
"I still see a..." He stopped his sentence when he noticed my angry expression. "Ow yeah I see it now! Such a cool dragon." he laughed.
"You know, I was about to hit you. But I'm glad you said that."
Then he took my hands and made a frame with them around a different cloud.
"Can you see the frog on a bicycle."
"Actually, I do. It has a huge forehead."
"Hey don't insult the frog, he might hold a grudge." he teased.
Right at that moment I noticed the letters engraved in his hand and I couldn't stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. I took his hands in mine and held them as if they were my dearest possession.
"I'm sorry." I whispered. What was I sorry for? I was sorry for causig him pain, I hated to cause people pain, especially Enzo. But most of all I was sorry for the feeling I had gotten when he had looked at me like that, a feeling I wasn't familiar with but knew all too well was the best and the worst I had ever felt.
"Don't be sorry. It's not your fault."
I avoided eye contact but Enzo lifted my chin and repeated: "Faye, don't be sorry."
I nodded.
I rested my head on his shoulder and realized I was still tired, even though I had slept a couple of hours before. I guess thinking makes you tired. I closed my eyes and gave myself permission to rest for a couple of minutes. Just a couple of minutes.