when peace shatters

She could see him flinch at her unyielding nature, the fact that she refused to cushion her words with any sort of kindness or concession. Part of her thought good. Part of her thought, it wasn't enough. And the part of her she was most ashamed by though, maybe I'm being mean.

Nope. No. Things things fell on a spectrum. She was being downright civil.

"I don't know what Mason did," she said, carefully picking her words. "But it sounds like you started it. You didn't do anything for their benefit. I don't know why you did it and, to be honest, I don't care. There's no excuse. Not for violence. Not for... that."

Okay, the anger in her was starting to rise. Which she didn't understand. Because he was apologizing. But what would an apology do. She couldn't go back to a world where this person she was beginning to trust had not hurt people, had not made choices that revealed his total lack of empathy. That trust was gone. And, according to the way her short but tumultuous life had gone, it wasn't likely to go back.

Somewhere deep inside she was reminded that she came here to make pain potion. She'd had to lower her dose to spread out her remaining stock and she could feel the pain creeping in, seizing on her joints, quickening her pulse, slicing at her nerves. But this was too important for her to give in to the pain.

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one you should be apologizing too, am I?"

Alex was consumed by anger and frustration, unable to hold it in any longer. He knew he had acted like a jerk, but his outburst wasn't meant to hurt anyone. "Forget it," he growled, his voice laced with irritation. "You wouldn't understand," he added, knocking over his potion as he stormed out of the room, away from the person he had thought he could trust.

As he made his way down the hallway, his anger continued to boil over, and he stopped abruptly, slamming his fist into the wall in a fit of rage. His hand stung, but he didn't care. The physical pain paled in comparison to the emotional turmoil he was feeling.

The withdrawal symptoms were sending shivers across her body, goosebumps pricking at her skin, a clammy feeling starting in her palms.

Tomorrow, she'd credit the withdrawals with her unreasonable behavior. She'd seen James and Albus tantrums, she'd never chased after them, she'd left them to their own immature devices.

But she followed.

Slowly. Deliberately.

Luckily he'd slowed himself down taking it out on a wall.

"No Huffepuffs around for your punching bag?" she said, her voice low but pointed. She stopped, crossing her arms and cocking her head.

Before he could speak, she explained, "You're right, I don't understand. I have my issues. I don't take it out on people. I don't ignore consent. I don't hurt people. Because my pain belongs to me, it's no one else's responsibilities."

Alex's anger dissipated, and his tone softened as he spoke to Lily. "I didn't mean to hurt her, not like that," he growled, shaking his hand in an attempt to ease the pain. "Maybe I humiliated her, but I never intended to break her," he added, his voice trailing off.

A sense of calm washed over him as he watched blood ooze out of his hand from the force of hitting the stone. He knew he needed to explain himself to Lily. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone, Lily," he said, turning to face her. He was at a loss for words, not sure how to make things right after his outburst.

"Meant."

The werewolf who bit her probably didn't mean to bit her. But he did.

Her mother didn't mean to leave her children to fend for themselves. But she did.

Her brothers probably didn't mean to trap her in a home of instability. But they did.

"Meant to is pretty weak in comparison to what happened," she said. "If I told you you dad didn't mean to leave you during those summers-"

She stopped herself, and even in her anger a shadow of apology crossed her face. She took a step back, dropped her head, and took a deep breath. Her fingernails dug into her palms, her breath shallow as the pain edged against her mind.

She didn't look at him. She couldn't. Because she couldn't imagine an answer that felt right. "What did you mean trying to force them to kiss you?"

Alex's frustration grew as Lily brought up his father. "That isn't the same. They meant to. They paid people to do their job," he retorted, still feeling the hurt of being abandoned, his voice raising as he spoke. "They meant to leave me."

He had originally hoped to connect with someone on a deeper level, but now he found himself backpedaling. "I meant that I thought they were hot, but that was before I found out how annoying they were," he lied defensively, not knowing how to express what he truly wanted or needed. How could he tell Lily that all he really wanted was to be seen and maybe loved? It felt too vulnerable and risky to admit.

She turned her head at the comment about his father. Listen, she was not going to talk about family. It wasn't something she wanted weaponized against herself so it was a preemptive defensive to keep that out of the line of fire. She regretted ever saying it.

But not more than she regretted asking the question.

Her head raised and her lip curled. Lily, without the sedation of her usual course of painkillers, was feeling more than she had in months, so it was the full weight of her disgust that she stepped forward, face-to-face with the boy, and told him what she thought of that.

"Gross."

She turned on her heel, her arms dropping to her side, and began her return to her solace in the dungeons.

Alexander didn't attempt to chase after Lily or stop her from leaving. He knew that she was right, and the truth of it stung. He turned and punched the wall in frustration, feeling helpless and alone. "Just walk away like everyone else."

He sank down against the wall, defeated. It seemed that no matter how he acted or what he did, no one ever wanted him around. He couldn't help but feel like he was unwanted and unloved, even from the very beginning of his life.

"I know," he muttered to himself bitterly, feeling disgusted with his own situation. "Gross," he shook his head, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall, lost in his own thoughts and despair.

Her heart was pounding in her throat, a combination of the adrenaline from the confrontation and the beginning onslaught of pain uninterrupted. But she wouldn't allow anyone to see that. She had so carefully hidden her condition and her actual feelings for so long, she wasn't going to undo all of that work now. She stayed upright, her spine tall and rigid, until she was out of sight of the Slytherin boy and finally in the safety of the dungeons.

Finally, she turned into the workroom. She paused in the doorway, eyes fluttering closed as she took a deep, steadying breath. Her body swayed involuntarily and her hand lifted, catching herself on the doorframe, before she forced her eyes open and concentrated on the storeroom. She blinked away the beginning of the auras flitting around her vision and made her way to the storeroom. Once again, her body swayed and she cursed, fumbling with her bag to drink the last of the potion that was meant to last her another day and a half.

The very act of drinking it brought some semblance of relief. Had she allow herself to muse on that fact, she'd have to confront how much of her condition was psychosomatic and fueled by the consistent dulling of the pain she did have by the potions. But she'd never been in a healthy enough space to allow such dangerous self reflection to take place and now was certainly not the time.

The past few days had been too much. Was it too much to ask to have friends she could trust? Was it too much to ask to have a body that worked without pain? Was it too much to ask for some time alone?

She reached up and rubbed away the ghost of sadness from her eyes with the back of her hand. And then she went into the storeroom. It was time to get to work.