Thump Thump

The slow, steady sound of her breathing was barely audible over the sound of the violent winds beyond the castle walls thrashing against the window panes, colliding and retreating, colliding and retreating. It was the mournful howl of the wind that first woke the blonde. It jolted her from where she lay, sending shock waves through her body that burned their way from her head to the very tips of her toes. Her chest heaved, despite the pain it caused her, as she fought to regain her bearings somewhat; and as the world blinked into focus, she was reminded that she was safe. As her chest slowed in pace, the bullet train coming to a stop in the station so to speak, she lowered herself back down against the slightly too plump pillows. Her eyes slid shut over the large pupils and she allowed herself to slip back into a fitful sleep, her bandaged hand coming to rest over her abdomen where the knife had pierced through the skin and through the organs beneath. Much had been healed but not all. No, there was much that could not be fixed.

The second time she came to it was a lot more relaxed. Her eyelids flickered open, peeling back over her eyes, and she rolled them to and fro as she tried to take in her surroundings once more. With at least an hour between waking, she’d forgotten most of what happened the hour prior and so once again believed the surroundings to be new ones. As her eyes took in the gentle dancing glow of the wicks alight with flame, their wax bodies acting as an adhesive to keep them attached to the stand, the voices began to float through the infirmary, far louder than the matron should have really allowed. Yet the voices, four in total if she could distinguish them correctly, travelled from one end of the infirmary to the other, just as loud as it was when it left the mouth of the speaker. It was because of that, that, even in her blurry state, it did not take long for her to identify who was talking, or rather, arguing. It was, predictably, her parents with the additions of the matron and Elliot.

As much as she didn’t want her parents to be there, she knew she would have little choice in the matter once Lavender began doting. Seamus would stand awkwardly, hands in pockets and head ducked ever so slightly until the simpering woman left the room under the guise of being far too overemotional to deal with her daughter’s pain. Then he’d slowly grow in animation before leaning over and placing a kiss on her forehead and mumbling something along the lines of “get well soon” before leaving also, his excuse being going after Lavender. Of course, Millie knew where they’d both be going. They’d go back to their own lives, leave the house empty and return in time to put on the famed Finnigan production of: “Let’s try and act like a real family.” Of course this year, they were sure to fail. They forgot so readily about each other that it was impossible for them not to forget their children. After all, Millie and Elliot were living results of a failed marriage. If they forgot for long enough, maybe, just maybe, the children would disappear.

Unfortunately though, the scenario didn’t quite go as expected.

As Millie began to gingerly ease herself up into a sitting position, her mother dashed towards the other end of the wing, her eyes not straying once to Millie’s bed. Her face was the colour of raspberries and her hair was stuck up on end, both aspects lending to a dishevelled appearance that was really quite uncharacteristic considering her usually obsessive desire to have a pristine appearance near constantly. Following her like the obedient puppy he was, was Millie’s father. Seamus was just as scruffy as his wife and it seemed as if neither were willing to stay. And of course, lastly escaped Elliot who was vying for any shred of attention he could get from the neglectful parents they had. There was so little that could be done for their family now, Millie wondered why they bothered. They did though, for appearance sake, as if the opinions of the world meant everything to them.

The matron bustled around the corner, vials of fuchsia coloured liquid in her hands, and lifted her eyes to see the blonde girl awake. She gasped and her grip tightened on the precarious vials in her hands. She hurried forward and placed them down in the rack by Millie’s bed before wiping her hand on her apron and pressing her palm and finger’s against the girl’s head. Her lips pursed and she reached forward for one of the vials. She pulled the stopped out and held it out for Millie to take. The girl bit her lip and lifted her bandaged hand up, her fingers quivering as they reached out for the vial. The matron aided her, but only a little bit, nudging her chin up so as to help the girl swallow the odd tasting mixture.

“Good girl,” the matron murmured gently before putting the stopper back on the vial and placing it back in the rack. “Seems like you had quite a tumble, Miss Finnigan. That’ll heal a lot of your internal injuries - or at the very least start healing them. There was a lot of damage to your lower abdominal area,” The matron brought her hands to her own stomach, just above her pelvic bone, “and there are a few ramifications as a result of that. However, it’s nothing too, um, strenuous on your part. I’ll keep getting you to take these potions and your hand should heal up soon enough. There were a lot of vein and blood supply problems...it was a wonder you didn’t bleed out. You’re a very lucky girl. Oh, and do enjoy these sweets when you feel up to it. Your brother has been munching on a box of Bertie Bott’s since he’s been here - left not a moment before now. However, you have sweets from Mr. Harris and some ones from anonymous sources. It’s all quite lovely. Now, do excuse me while I go back to my office. If you need anything, just call. Oh, and Millie, I suggest you leave the cigarettes alone for a while.”

And so just like that, Millie was left to her own devices. She exhaled shakily and brought her bandaged hand to her head. She could move a little bit more freely now, even if she couldn’t feel the limbs. She rolled her left temple and closed her eyes as she tried to fight off the remnants of shooting pain in her abdomen. She dropped her hand gently down onto the bandaged skin and drummed them against the thick bandage before looking up at the sound of a throat being cleared. Millie lifted her gaze, hoping to find Trent standing in the doorway, but instead saw Spencer rocking back and forth, an embarrassed smile on his face. He removed his arms from behind his back, revealing a beautiful bouquet of flower clenched in his right hand. He hurried over to where she was laid, propped up against the pillows that gave her a false appearance of being sat upwards.

“You look so much better.” He told her gently, leaning over to press a kiss to her forehead. Millie nibbled nervously on her bottom lip and watched out of the corner of her eye as he placed the flowers in a vase by her beside. “Went into Hogsmeade today and I thought I’d get you something to brighten up the joint a bit. I, um. Just so you know...everyone knows you’re in here. Elliot hit the roof - literally - when he found out. You must have had thumping great fall, Mills. How’s your stomach? The matron said you were pretty roughed up in terms of that. There was so much blood, y’know? You were in a pretty bad way when we found-”

“-You found me?” Millie spoke up, her voice hoarse yet holding much more strength than her body. At Spencer’s nod, she sighed again. “Thank you,” She whispered gently, her hand returning once more to rest on her abdomen. “I don’t feel better, Spence, I feel as if I’m still bleeding. I feel so empty.” Millie bit her lip and hung her head as she fought to keep back the tears. “I don’t...I don’t remember what happened I...” And yet, she did, she just knew she needed to feign the ignorance. To protect Trent, to protect Elliot...to protect everyone.

“Hey!” Spencer rose to his feet and kicked off the boots he wore. He shrugged off his jacket and chucked it on the chair he’d been seated on before gingerly kneeling onto the bed. He leaned forward, nudging her cheek with his nose and brought her into his arms. His lips brushed her temple and he reached down to cover her hand that was dwarfed by his larger ones. “Don’t cry, baby. It’ll be fine, I promise. You’ll get better. You’ll be happy again. Think about it. In a month’s time you’ll be back with me in Div, smoking to our hearts content. It’ll be fine, I promise.” Millie couldn’t help but laugh as he tried to make light of the situation but her chest ached, as if begging her not to try and do such a thing again. She leaned into him, bringing her hand up to place over his heart. She pulled at a bit of stray material but paid little attention to it as she listened to the thump-thump in his chest, so strong, so full of life - everything she wasn’t at that moment and everything she feared she could never be again.

Millie had gone missing. As usual, the Gryffindor Common Room was almost weary of a boy, restlessly and impatiently scraping at the floor in expression of his frustration at the absence of his girl, who was spending far too many hours shifting from armchair to armchair, wall to wall, waiting for Millie. This time, the girl had not appeared for far too long. Trent had expected things to have gotten better, and hopefully, easier after he had wrapped Millie in his arms once again at the Clock Tower. Yet, a day after what felt like the happy day in a long while, the girl had mysteriously disappeared. He had waited anxiously for her return to the Common Room, wanting only to wrap her in his arms again after her detention with ProfessorFelix Barker. Too bad for Trent, he remembered feeling his breath get a little heavier than usual after just three pages of getting through his Potions textbook, and the next time he opened his eyes was when Otto, an oddly cheery third year, was shaking him awake. By the time Trent got to the Great Hall, some of the students were already leaving it, having satisfied their tummies' calls for breakfast already. Even then, there was no Millie. Not one to give breakfast a miss, Trent had, however, merely grabbed a toast, and ran off to Ancient Runes, hoping to be right there at the classroom's entrance to catch Millie. It was in vain. The classroom was almost filled, and the Professor had glared at Trent, as if assuming that the boy was up to no good again, refusing to enter the classroom despite being the first to be waiting outside of it. Disappointed, Trent had settled into the classroom, his stomach punching its owner for sacrificing its satisfaction over some girl. The girls who had sat next to him had giggled at the incessant growling his hunger had produced. As if he was not already perturbed by the absence of Millie, but he had to put up with this sort of embarrassment. It was mild, yes, but it was still an embarrassment. No teenage boy at that age would appreciate being a joke to a bunch of girls.

Of course, Trent had believed that the problem could be easily solved by merely asking Elliot about the whereabouts of his sister. That is, if they were on talking terms, even. The last thing Trent wanted to talk to Elliot about was Millie. It was the very cause for their fall-out. And so, Trent merely sat through his classes and brooded. Back in the Common Room, the boy had literally shifted his Dormitory outside, falling asleep on the floor next to a cold wall. Elliot had caught sight of a sleeping Trent and merely frowned. It was easy to assume what Trent was out in the Common Room for, partaking in uncomfortable sleep. His worry about his missing sister grew at the sight of Trent. It was as if, if he did not know where Millie was, he trusted the other boy to. It was disconcerting to see the other boy suffering for his sister's absence too. Too bad for both of the boys, however, pride was the biggest obstruction that deprived them of coming together regarding Millie's disappearance. The only other person who noticed the odd situation was Byron, who became worried too. After all, whatever happened to whoever in the Gryffindor Gang concerned him. 

Excitement ruptured the unusually stale air that seemed to have stifled the entire Castle, on the morning of the first Hogsmeade weekend. Trent was woken by the din in the Common Room. He had opened his eyes to a group of older Gryffindor girls who stared at him in disbelief. His dishevelled appearance merely convinced them that he had been a wreck again the night before, the usual odd substances that the boy was often consuming. Trent was not in the mood to bother with their dirty looks. He had sat up, scratched at his scalp, and stretched. And then, his eyes scanned for Millie. No sign of her, still. As much as Trent wanted to stomp into the Girls Dormitory to look for her, he held back. The last time he had done so, he was called into detention because some girls saw and reported him to the Prefect, who reported him to the Head of House. While everyone streamed out of the Common Room eagerly, Trent stayed behind, still hoping to see Millie appear, wanting to admonish her for not being the one who was looking for him instead. That is, until Byron came to drag him out of his corner, telling him that Roxi had said that Millie had not gotten back to the Dormitory ever since two nights ago. 

Even with that new knowledge of Millie's whereabouts, or the lack of it, Trent could do nothing. He wished he could track her somehow, somewhere, but how, what, which, where, and when? Sulking, all the worst possibilities popped up in his head. Oddly, Trent had forgotten about the fact that Millie had gone missing after she had hurried away to detention with Felix. He had also not thought it possible for her to be  maimed. The worst thought that came to his mind was of her being tupped away by a boy who was not him. As soon as Trent let that thought probe his head, his anger only grew and grew. So this was how it's going to be, he thought bitterly. Byron looked happier than ever, as if something worth whistling all day about had happened, that Trent did not know about. As a result, Trent began to obviously shove his temper around Byron. The other boy had been puzzled at first. And then, he had lashed back, annoyed to have his goodwill and good cheer put down by one of the sulkiest boy in Gryffindor history, he had thought. That ultimately rendered Trent alone at Hogsmeade, looking blankly at people who walked past him. 

When he returned to Hogwarts, Trent was surprised to see Byron running towards him in a frenzy. Trent had strolled back slowly, now choosing to roam outside more than the tight walls around everywhere in the Castle. While he had expected more lashings from their earlier childish argument, Trent was instead told by an almost breathless Byron that Spencer had found Millie. At the word of "Hospital Wing", Trent made a dash for it, running like he had never run in a long, long time, as if he was escaping from a previous prison, a free man at last. What he saw upon his arrival, however, was far from liberty. Lavander Finnigan had took one look at Trent, and ran to embrace him, sobbing. Quickly, though, she recovered. Elliot refused to look at Trent. Seamus gave Dean's son a slight smile. The three reactions, although unlike each other, were omens to the boy. Something bad had happened to Millie. He had a slight inkling of that already when he was running to this part of the school. One only landed at the Hospital Wing when one was hurt. Usually, too, parents were not seen at school. With his heart battling hard against the limits of his chest, Trent burst into the Wing, stopping in his tracks as soon as his eyes found the girl. Transfixed, Trent felt his jaw drop involuntarily. And then, he walked to her bedside. The girl was asleep, or unconscious, he did not know and he could not bear to ask. A slightly trembling hand landed on a bandaged one resting on the bed, touching it uncertainly. And then, Trent turned and ran out of the Wing.

The boy did not stop until he arrived at his Dormitory. While he had wanted to jump into bed and will himself out of the feelings that felt like the aftermath of a nightmare, Trent merely sat at the end of his bed and stared at the ground. He sat like this for a long, long while. And then, after the initial shock of having to look at the battered sight of Millie, Trent began to blink hard, and then quickly. And then he realised what he had done. He had ran away from her, ran away because the sight had killed him. But she needed him, he thought. Whatever that had happened to her showed its traumatic value on her body, the body he was supposed to protect. But he had ran, and now he regretted it painfully. Standing up quickly, Trent walked out of the Dormitory and the Common Room, and made his way quickly back towards the Hospital Wing. He only hoped she would not be alone when she awoke. He wanted to hold her now, hold her and then make sure he knew what had caused her injuries. Who, rather. He had not heard any word earlier. There was no chance that he had left for anyone to tell him the altered version of whatever story of Millie's trauma. She looked so battered that Trent assumed someone had done it. He thought of the faces of the Slytherins who always had an impetus against the gang, ready to point his finger and soon his wand at them. As much as Trent had never used any of the Unforgivables before, seeing that it was almost never used by students and good wizards alike, he was already using it in his mind, fuming with anger for what he thought they did to Millie.

As soon as Trent got himself past the doors of the Hospital Wing, he halted. Someone was in bed with Millie. He stared, his fists slowly clenching, taking in what Spencer had said to the girl, making all the quick assumptions one jealous boy could make about them. Then there was laughter. Millie laughed. Trent made the final clenches of his fists, blinking back angry tears, more because he did not want to appear weepy when he was supposed to man up. In the midst of his anger, Trent had almost forgot that Millie was hurt. He was, above all, mindful that she who he believed to be his, selfishly, looked happy with another boy. In spite, he almost let out a subversive laughter, as if the game was over and the joke was on him, all this time. He could not believe he had trusted Millie with his heart. Then again, she was his best friend. If he did not trust her, who else could he trust? All the angry, impatient, and misled thoughts engulfed Trent's mind. In the brashness of his anger, the boy whipped out his wand. "I won't let you have her without a fight," he finally spoke. The volume of his challenge boomed through the almost silent Wing. Of course, he did not consider if he was possibly making a fool out of himself. His heart spoke, and his actions followed.

The Hospital Wing had been a place Millie had frequented often in her school years. Quidditch seemed to be the main reason why she got herself knocked around, bones broken and the like. The broken bones from the year prior had prompted Lavender to put her foot down and ban any Quidditch being played by her daughter. Millie knew that Elliot would have been quick to relay the details back to their mother if she even so as thought about joining the team again. And with no word from Elliot suggesting there had been a Quidditch accident, something was obviously very wrong when Lavender and Seamus were called up to the school. Neither of them particularly wanted to go because to be in each other’s presence - injured daughter or not - was entirely too much to ask of them. Millie had a feeling that’s why they’d left so swiftly. Neither of them wanted to miss her waking up, not really, but they didn’t want to be stuck in a stuffy hospital until then, either. Millie had no sympathy for them. She would have rather been gathered up in Spencer’s arms than cooed over by her patronizing mother and ignored by her impatient, emotionless father.

Spencer was never going to be an ideal visitant. He had his heart in the right place, sure, but she didn’t need him right now. Millie needed...she didn’t know what she needed. She didn’t need someone to tell her it was going to be alright. She didn’t need Spencer’s promises of happier times to come. She just...she needed someone and she needed the quiet so she could sort through her own thoughts...sort through what happened. She didn’t want to know, not really. She didn’t want to have to relive it. Eventually she’d have to though. She’d had to look at the statistics, hear what the matron had to say and her parents would eventually have to be informed of what had happened; what had really happened. The matron was about as convinced of the set up for what happened as Elliot was. Millie knew she had to be somewhat convincing. She just didn’t have the energy to do so, though. That was the only true problem.

When Trent burst through the door, wand grasped in his hand, Millie couldn’t help but groan. Suddenly the luminous hospital lights were too much for her and with as much strength as she could muster, she pushed her hand against Spencer’s chest but he did not notice. His eyes were focused on Trent where as Millie was fighting to keep hers closed in order to block out the pain of the light. Spencer released her and slipped off of the bed, leaving Millie to press her face into her hands, desperate to avoid the conversation to come in one form or another. Through the gaps in her fingers, she stared at Trent, conscious of his actions. He was being ridiculous, she was sure. Spencer didn’t want her in that way. They’d been together many a time though they had never entertained the idea of being with each other properly, of making something of it - whatever it was. Millie had never wanted Spencer, not in that sense. No, it had always been Trent.

“Can we please not do this?” Millie asked, her voice lacking the strength and air of finality it should have held. It was weak. She was weak. Everything about her wreaked of the weakness she shouldn’t have possessed. She hated herself for it. Her eyes, impossibly wide, darted from Trent to Spencer and back again, trying to suss out what the boys were planning on doing. Spencer was merely stood there, waiting almost, for Trent to make up his mind and choose his course of action. “Trent, Spencer was just being nice. Can we not fight? Just...put the wand down.”

Trent was being foolish. But he was foolish, a lot. He had a special talent to imagine the worst. Even when worst was real, he had the talent to magnify it to be worser than worst. It had gotten to the point where he cannot live without pain. It's never easy telling which came first, the pain, or his imagination; rather, both probably worked together for a greater effect. The imagination was always the best aid to pain. Trent did not know how to live without both. Both seemed to be the greatest constants in his life. People saw the front of indifference, his favourite mask. People just did not see the weakness and the yearning, and the child. Not that he let them.

No, only Millie could. Trent had not intended on letting the girl discover his foolishness, his weakness. It just happened. She was the only figure of comfort he allowed in. And yet, it was precisely that, that made him too attached to her. As much as the attachment made him want to push away every time it got too much for him, the same sense of strength extended to his possessiveness over Millie, the one he did not discover until he saw Spencer with the girl. Anyone else would have deemed the other boy as merely a friend comforting another. Not Trent. Not now. Not especially when he had no clue about what had happened to the girl. And with all the frustrations of waiting around for her, only to see her with Spencer like that, anxiety transferred itself rashly to jealousy.

Although the other Gryffindor boy hastily removed himself from the bed in confusion, Trent continued to direct his wand at him. The wand was not lowered, and the glare did not cower. Not until Millie spoke, the faintness of her voice ironically commanding over his stronger one earlier. Trent averted his eyes from Spencer to Millie. Only when he noticed the look on her face, the revelation of desperate weakness, that he lowered his wand slowly, before shooting another glare at Spencer, as if he wanted to have the last say in his challenge. When Trent began to take the steps to Millie's bedside, they were steps of uncertainty. It was as if he suddenly forgot how to act in front of the girl. As soon as he finally got himself next to Millie, or rather, his hand near her face, that he reached that hand out to lightly touch her cheek.

"Hey," he whispered unintentionally, almost as if he did not dare to let the volume of his voice shake her now. Trent attempted to smile. "Look at you, Mophead." A weak attempt at familiarity. "Looking much better than before." A weak attempt at consolation. "I brought s-" And then he paused. Trent felt the small bottle of whisky at the back of his pants pocket, something he had grabbed before dashing out of the common room. Now, though, he wondered about its suitability, a question he had never asked before in his life. Was alcohol suitable for this occasion? Trent remembered how Mick, one of the muggle boys during the summer, worsened a bleeding wound from feeding himself alcohol. He then looked at Millie again, and shook his head, with a sheepish smile. Then a look of concern swept over his face.

"What happened, Mills?" He was serious now. "Who did this to you?" Trent let his mind run through the names of Slytherins he suspected. "David? Darius? Athena? Damien? Kane? Augustine?" He implored in his question. "Tell me who. I'll get them for you, I will." Trent nodded. He reached for Millie's free hand, with both of his hands, and grasped it gently between. And then he peered at the girl's stomach, unsure about what exactly was the injury caused. Yet, he thought better than to ask. He would rather take her mind off her body for now. But the pain in his heart could not quell. The more he saw her in this state of weakness, the more his heart contracted. How did he not protect her from whoever who was out to get at her?

There was little need for the argument between the two men that Trent was vying for. Millie, too weary to see them argue, was thankful for the eventual lowering of Trent’s wand. Her fingers were tugging at the bandage wrapped around the hand opposite and she chewed at her split bottom lip as she watched the two Gryffindors, anxious to embrace Trent. The unfortunate part about it was that she didn’t actually think she could. Her stomach ached with no preface. It had not spared her a grief-free moment. The potion she’d taken, though somewhat effective, only dulled the sharpness; it was as if the knife was still there, pinning her to the table upon which she lay. And what was worse was that she could feel Barker’s bruising grasp on her hips, the pull against her underarms as the dress was yanked ferociously in an attempt to get it off. He did, there was little worry about that. His point had been proved. She’d been to hell and back though, what she saw now was merely a slightly brighter version of the former. To be back was just as unpleasant.

The bandages abruptly lost their tightness around her palm and Millie’s eyes dropped to her hands as she shakily began to unravel the bandage. Each layer released more and more of her hand and allowed more blood back into her rapidly pinking fingers. Transfixed by what lay beneath the last layer, she barely noticed Trent’s fingers graze her cheek. She did notice, though, that was the important thing. Slowly, Millie almost guiltily lifted her eyes up to Trent’s face and she managed a small smile as her hands twisted the bandage, impatient to find out, to see. She laughed a little, though whether it was because she found humour from his words or because she felt the need to placate him, Millie did not know. She was weary...too weary to cry and thrash and shout. She just wanted calm. She found herself bizarrely wishing for her brother’s company but she knew Elliot would fuss more than their mother ever would so perhaps her father. Seamus would be good company, even through his awkwardness.

“I’m fine,” Millie assured, not that she believed her words mind you; if she were fine then she wouldn’t have been up. She would have been wrapped around whoever she’d ended up climbing into bed with the night before and would only just be entertaining the idea of getting up and going in search of something to eat. Instead of languishing in the warmth of another’s embrace and lazing in a bed that wasn’t hers, she was sat teasing the coarse yet oddly soft bandage material in order to see what scars had been produced from Barker’s mistreatment. She was most definitely not fine. Cuts, scratches and bruises had sprung in places she couldn’t even remember him touching. Her heart was still beating though, thrusting blood and oxygen around her body in a bizarre effort to keep her alive. Millie was seriously wondering what the point of it was. Searching that little bit of her that supplied the answers had given her little of what she wanted. There was no outcome -- just darkness.

“Did Puddlemere win? I missed the game.” Millie pursed her lips playfully in an attempt to lighten the situation but something was wrong with a girl, as bruised, battered and bandaged as she was smiling. It looked wrong on her despite the reassurance of it. She released the bandage as Trent took her hand and she wriggled her nose, her mind still on the thought of Puddlemere winning. “They’ve been good this season,” she commented idly. “Having said that....” Millie trailed off and looked quizzically at Trent. She smiled a little and released her hand from his grasp so as to bring it back to the bandage. She unwrapped the last of the bandage and lifted her hand to the light so as to inspect the dark against her pale hand - the scar that dipped through the skin wasted the land it cut through. The trickle of blood made it feel like the Nile to Millie, the way it carved through the world around it later to be turned red...to be turned to blood.

Millie continued to babble, determined to change the subject. She spoke about nothing, and then about everything, before perking up and smiling at Trent as her eyes lifted from her hand. “How’s your mum?” She asked, as if talking about the weather. “I think I saw mine but I don’t know. She dresses a lot like the girls...like a teenager. It’s unsettling somewhat.”

The slight frown that formed involuntarily between his eyebrows betrayed the face that Trent had intended on putting up for Millie. The good thing was that the girl was evidently not too successful in her mask too. It was probably the habit of knowing her too long, and too well, that told Trent that something about her response betrayed her act. Being Trent, though, he could only explain that knowing as simply because. He had no well-formulated reason to offer, even to his own struggling mind. Trent watched as the girl made a conscious attempt to steer the mood away from the dark pool that both of them were facing in their minds. Even then, there was no appropriate light against a suitable puddle of water that would produce a sort of promising prism of colours. No, there was none of that, not even in imagination. The darkness was overwhelming, and Trent watched it helplessly; he watched her face helplessly. Someone should have notified the boy that a smile was not really a smile when he had a heavy frown above it. Not even neutrality was achieved in the expression. Not everything could be a mathematical equation borne out of the meeting of positive and negative simply because the latter overwhelmed the former. Well, even mathematical equations gave way to a larger negative value.

"I ... well, I missed it too. But they did win, Byron told me so. He's the fanatic. But of course, of course, I'm pleased they won. We'll will win the cup this time, you'll see. We've been in fantastic form. It's another year of glory." A gleam flickered across Trent's eyes at the thought of that, but the gleam stayed true to its definition of briefness. He had been so full of thoughts and worries and dreams of Millie these days, that even the games of his favourite team he had missed. All Trent did was to sit around and mope, exhausting Byron, who was slowly but surely giving up on trying to include his friend in anything else. Of course, Trent had consoled his change of character with explaining to himself how Byron was the greater Quidditch fanatic after all, and that he was not really losing his sanity.

"Byron has been busy ... the busiest I'll say," Trent began again, as if deciding that his friend would make a good conversation topic, to fill the dark spaces in the room. "At the rate he's chatting with everyone, the whole school's bound to know him s-." And the abrupt cut came at the sight of Millie's injured hand. Trent blinked and stared at it. And then anger, which he tried to quell every second of. Millie rambled on but Trent was not listening. His eyes are locked on her face, unable to turn to her hand. But his eyes were not looking at her. No, they were trained on the mental image of what he saw earlier of the girl's hand. Being Trent, his emotions could be easily read by people who knew him. Still, he continued to simmer himself down in vain. The questions that bombarded his mind came afresh. He wanted to grab the girl and shake her hard to make her realise that bursting emotion in him. Yet, he pulled himself back for the moment. Just for a moment. And then a hand shot up to grasp her left arm firmly. Only once it had found its way there did Trent loosen his grip, worried that he had hurt her with his impulse.

"Sh-She's fine." Steering his eyes away, the waters of darkness from that pool showed clearly in them. Trent swallowed at what had become a tight ball at his throat. Thoughts of Millie were already too much to handle; yet, she brought his mother up. Letters from the older Thomas were hardly comforting. Trent was given the option of staying at school over Christmas. It was a strange option. Demelza would usually write with expectations of having her son back home for the holidays, even if time there was still going to frustrate the boy. Speaking of which, Trent had failed to receive a single letter from his mother, ever since returning to Hogwarts. It was weird enough to have his father write to him instead, but weirder still when little was mentioned about his mother. Trent merely assumed she had bigger assignments at work, or had something else taking up all of her time, as if his parents had a role reversal. Whatever it was, he had given up trying to ask his father about Demelza. Trent bit his lower lip and attempted a sort of smile in response to what Millie was telling him about her mother.

"Yes, she was here, your mum. You were still asleep. Your mum, dad, Elliot ..." Trent trailed off after listing the obvious. And then, he took a step closer to Millie and planted a light kiss to her forehead, a gentle move that countered the violent feelings he had to suffer. But Trent could not give her anything other than that. He looked at her, saw the weakness that he was not used to, and his composure crumbled inside of him.