For its jusst me (Kaia)

above and below

She is falling apart, very, very slowly.

Nobody notices, nobody cares, nobody even bats an eyelid and nobody thinks to look for her when she's not around. She's Lucy Weasley, the spare child.

Her parents are too caught up making sure that Molly doesn't get murdered when she stays out all night and dumping huge punishments on her, they're too busy with their older, rebellious daughter to pay any attention to quiet little Lucy.

She's always standing alone in a crowded room, always sitting against the wall or in the corner, observing the action and as a result of this, she knows more about her family and the other students at Hogwarts than she knows about herself. She's unsure of where she's heading, feeling like she's going to fall off the balance beam and into the abyss at any moment.

"Lucy?" she hears her father knock on the door to her bedroom as she lays on her bed, trying not to cry. She doesn't want to go back to school; she doesn't want to go back to a place where she knows that every second whisper is about her, where every laugh is about her looks or her personality. She wants to stay here, in her bedroom so that there would always be silence.

She doesn't reply. She knows that her father will try to make her pack, she knows that he will come in and check over her homework which has long since been done, she knows that he will pretend that everything is normal. Lucy isn't stupid, she knows that Molly hasn't come home in over three days.

If Lucy was hoping that ignoring her father would make him go away, she was wrong. She hears the door open and sits up abruptly.

"Luce?" her father asks, walking over to her bed and sitting down. She says nothing.

"Lucy, I know you don't want to talk, but I want you to know that Molly hasn't come home yet."

"I know," she says, her voice hardly audible.

"Do you know where she is?" her father asks. Lucy is taken aback, she has no idea why her father would think this, Molly hasn't said a single word to her in over four years. Lucy shakes her head.

"Well," her father says, "Your mother and I are very worried about her, so if you know anything it would be in both yours and Molly's best interests to tell me now."

"I don't know anything, Dad," Lucy mumbles, "Molly hates me, remember?"

"Now, I don't know about that," her father says, "Molly always speaks most highly of you."

Lucy knows he's lying to make her feel better so she says nothing again. They sit there in silence for a few minutes. She knows that her father thinks that she is somehow connected to Molly's disappearance but she is confident in knowing that she's innocent. Molly wouldn't confide in her for a hundred galleons.

The doorbell rings and her father practically throws himself from the room, not uttering a word to Lucy. She jumps up and looks out of her window to see several Muggle police cars parked outside their house. Two officers stand at the front door with Molly, James, Fred, Roxanne and another two boys that she doesn't recognise. She rolls her eyes as she sees how stoned Molly is. She can't remember a time when Molly isn't stoned. Molly has been taking drugs since she was thirteen years old, when the Muggle boy down the street, Phillip, introduced them to her. Lucy had tried everything to get Molly to stop taking them, but every time Lucy hid them, or threw them out, or burnt them, Molly would hit her. She would hit her so hard that her teeth rattled in her skull and a red welt would reside on her cheek for days afterwards. Eventually she had given up on Molly. She was a lost cause.

She watches as her mother opens the door and shrieks as she sees Molly standing there. Her father pulls Molly, James, Fred and Roxanne inside as her mother converses with the Muggle policemen. After a while, they tip their hats to her and get back in the van with the two boys she doesn't recognise.

Then the yelling begins, Molly yelling at their parents, their parents yelling at Molly, everyone yelling at each other. Lucy can't stand it. She pulls a pillow over her head, wishing that she was able to do magic so she could cast a silencing charm and drown them out completely. All the pillow does is muffle the noises coming from below her and she wishes they would move into the kitchen so their voices won't be as loud.

"What did we do to make you turn out this way Molly!?"

"Why are you so intent on disobeying us?"

"What did we do to deserve a child like you?"

"Why can't you be like Lucy?"

It's the last statement that gets a reaction out of Molly. Lucy tries hard to block it out, but it's fruitless. She can't press the pillow into her ears any more, she can't muffle the sounds out and her sisters voice rings out loud and clear, it is as if Molly is yelling in her ear.

"Why do you have to be so judgemental?" she hears Molly shriek, "Why do you always have to compare me to fucking Lucy?! She's a nerd, a loser and a fucking idiot, why in the name of everything that I hold dear would I want to be like her. She's a waste of space and don't deny that you don't think so too."

Lip trembling, Lucy picks herself up and walks over to the window. She can't take this anymore, she has to drown it out. She puts on her favourite Muggle radio station and turns the volume up full blast. It barely drowns out the screaming below and she wonders whether they have put sonorous charms on their throats to make their points heard more clearly.

It may not be able to drown out the sound of the yelling directly below her, but at least it makes sure that nobody can hear her crying. The tears rack her body in waves and she's sure she's about to break in half. She had always felt like she didn't belong, always felt like she didn't fit in and now it was confirmed. Her family thought she was a waste of space. She curls her legs up to her chest and cries for what seems like hours, the music blasting out of the stereo in the background and she's grateful for that present for the first time in her life.

After what seems like a lifetime, a neighbour yells out of the window for Lucy to turn off her music and she does so reluctantly, hoping that the yells from downstairs have stopped. They have.

Lucy lets her sobs subside into hiccups and then into sniffles until she falls asleep.

That night, Lucy learns that it is possible to cry in your sleep.

She wakes to the sound of yelling again.

It is more than just Molly and their parents this time. She can hear James, Fred and Roxanne too; they mustn't have gone home last night.

There is a crash and a shriek that could only emanate from her mother's lips. Lucy knows that nothing good will come from going downstairs. It's too early to play music to drown out the fight below. So she waits. She waits on the verge of tears as she hears her name thrown into the argument.

"Just stop Molly! You're going to wake up your sister!"

"I don't give a fuck Audrey," she hears Molly yell, "She can do with being a little less fucking perfect!"

"Molly!"

"What?!"

"You will not speak about your sister that way!"

"You can't stop me from telling the truth Audrey, you know she's a fucking dead weight in this family. She's not even intelligent, just chuck her off a cliff somewhere and be done with it."

Something else smashes, followed by her mother's yell, "Molly Weasley, that's a lie and you know it! At least Lucy does what she's told!"

"It's because she's too fucking scared of what you'll do to her if she doesn't. You're too controlling Audrey and you can't tell me what to do anymore. I'm 17. I'm an adult!"

"If you want me to treat you like an adult, you better start acting like one!"

"Fuck you! I'm done with this family. Tell Lucy she's a little shit from me."

Lucy tastes blood as she hears more shattering and screaming from below and then the slamming of a door. She watches out of her window as Molly runs across their front yard, James and Fred in tow, she can hear Roxanne yelling from the kitchen.

Molly's eyes travel upwards until they see Lucy in the window. Hate blazes in them and she bends over, picking up a large rock. Before Lucy can register what's happening, the rock has flown through the window, completely shattering it and misses her head by inches. The glass however, doesn't.

Lucy falls backwards as the shattered glass lies around her. She feels pricks in her face as little shards of glass lodge there. She rubs at it furiously and is relieved to find that they haven't cut into her, there is no blood. Lucy can't stand the sight of blood. As she rolls over, a large shard of glass digs into her arm, breaking the skin apart and letting the blood flow down her arm. Lucy retches, the smell in the air and the sight of the swirling red liquid combined are almost too much for her. She stops for a moment to calm herself down as she presses a t-shirt to the wound and that's when she remembers what just happened.

Molly yelling and screaming, shattering of things below, Molly revealing her thoughts about Lucy after all this time but Lucy finds that it's not that bad anymore. The pain in her arm seems to blot out the pain of what she had just heard.

She hears footsteps on the stairs and moves quickly (she doesn't want Molly to be in any more trouble than she already is) and picks up the glass one handed, cutting her hand slightly as she makes several trips to the bin to dispose of it. She has just flopped back on her bed when her mother opens the door to her bedroom.

"Luce?" she asks and Lucy feels the end of her bed sink a little, "you awake?"

Lucy nods and sits up, noticing the black eyes that her mother had forming and the several cuts and bruises on her face, not to mention the hand print across her cheek.

"We're going in half an hour okay?"

Lucy nods again, looking at the clock to see that it's almost 9am.

Lucy looks at her calendar and see's that it is in fact, September 1st.

She doesn't know if she can bring herself to go to School. She doesn't want to go back to the noise and the hustle and bustle of the castle, she doesn't want to sleep in a dormitory with four other girls who refuse to talk to her or even acknowledge her existence, she doesn't want to interact with her cousins and the others students, she doesn't want to do her work and pass her OWLs. She just wants peace and silence. She just wants to be alone, was that too much to ask of the world? Couldn't it just leave her the fuck alone for once?

But she has to go back.

She has to pass her OWLs

She has to deal with other students and her obnoxious cousins.

She has to do her parents proud.

She has to make up for what an awful daughter Molly was.

And she can't have peace and silence because that isn't how the world works.

Nothing is ever completely silent.

There's always a background noise, some rustling, or something being used to drown out the noise.

Failure, ugly, little shit, why can't you do better?, loser, loner, idiot, fat, ugly, failure.

Lucy's thoughts spiral around in vortexes as she takes her seat at the Ravenclaw table. She can't shake what Molly has said about her and her thoughts have just become louder and louder since. She feels like she's being constantly yelled at, she wants to lie down and sleep, but she knows that sleep is not going to fix what has happened. She knows that she is all of those things. It's true. Every. Single. Word.

Her housemates sit down around her, ready for the sorting and welcoming the first years. Nobody stops and sits next to her, nobody asks how her summer was, nobody even notices that Lucy, who normally has immaculate posture, is slumped in her seat, wishing that she were anywhere but here.

Make it go away she pleads with nobody please make them go away, leave me alone.

Nothing happens. She is as confused and lonely as she always was. Tears prick in her eyes and she bites her lip, telling herself over and over again not to cry. She wishes that everyone would be quiet, that they would all stop their conversations and notice her, that they would see how much pain she was in and that they would help her. She wishes that the voices in her head would stop screaming traits about herself that she already knew. She wishes that everything was different, that Molly wasn't a drug addicted school dropout, that she wasn't so shy, that her parents didn't have such high expectations of her. She wishes that someone would care enough to notice that she was dying ever so slowly.

Lucy feels herself stumble on the balance beam and she barely manages to stay on as the void circles dangerously below her.

Red rivers run down her arm as she clutches the edge of the bath to prevent herself from crying out. She slices the flesh over and over again, opening up herself and letting the pain and the suffering that she had been keeping locked up all day bleed out. She didn't want to be one of those girls that hurt themselves to take their mind off of the things that went on in their lives, but now she understood why they did it. It helped them to get everything out, it helped them to go on.

She cleans the bathroom thoroughly, making sure that any traces of blood have been obliterated. The slices on her arm sting as she washes them but the pain is nothing compared to everything that was coursing through her veins before.

She slips out of the bathroom quietly, careful not to wake the other girls in her dormitory and climbs into bed. It's late and Lucy is out of her comfort zone. She's normally asleep by nine o'clock. It's twelve thirty in the morning. She tosses and turns, wishing, hoping that she could get to sleep but with no luck. She couldn't escape.

At three thirty, she pulls out a quill, her wand and a small exercise book. She has to do something, anything with her time.

So she writes.

She lets her feelings flow onto the page.

Tears flow constantly down her face as she scribbles line after line after line. She writes about how she feels about Molly, about the other students and about her family, but when she reaches herself, she can't think of anything to say.

"I'm worthless," she whispers to the darkness and she doesn't make an effort to stem the tears that start to flow harder and faster down her face and she fights to keep her sobs from escaping her, "I'm so fucking worthless."

I can't do this anymore, Lucy thinks, the thought faint in amongst all of the other screaming thoughts that have constantly resided in her brain for over six months now. September, October, November, all the way up into February and all of the days have merged into one. She doesn't know when it will end but she wishes that it would stop soon. She can't deal with everything that's going on anymore. She can't deal with the pressure set on her by her parents, she can't deal with the fact that Molly was dead and the last thing that Molly did was throw a rock at her window. She can't deal with being ignored and teased every day of her life. She just wants it to end.

The healed scars on her arms are thrown into sharp relief as she crosses the grounds, walking slowly and steadily towards the lake. The lake was just starting to thaw and she knew that it would be colder than ever tonight, but this was the only way she had to numb the pain anymore. Cutting herself only went so far before it started to hurt her as well as the words and the pressure.

She strips off her pyjamas and stands in the cold March air on the jetty near the in nothing but her bra and underwear. She looks down to see rolls upon rolls of fat spilling out of her body. She doesn't know how this is possible, she hasn't eaten in weeks. She's just too fucking worthless, she can't do anything right!

She doesn't hesitate. She spreads her arms wide and jumps off the jetty, straight into the icy cold water of the lake. The cold forces the air from her lungs as it stabs her like knives against her flesh. She fights the urge to resurface and eventually, she is at peace. She is numb and all of the pain and hurt that she has been suffering drains away. If only she could stay under here forever.

Silent

That's what it was.

It was silent. Even Lucy's thoughts have shut up now, this was how she liked it.

Maybe I will stay down here forever, she thinks, a smile spreading across her face as her vision begins to go dark and her lungs scream for air. She lets out her breath and watches the bubbles of the last air in her body float to the surface as water fills her mouth. Her vision goes dark… and it is still ever so silent.

"Come on, stay with me,"

She hears a voice from above her and opens her eyes abruptly. The image swims before her and she can just make out a blonde haired boy leaning down towards her. Before she can do anything, his lips are on hers and his air is becoming hers. She feels her lungs inflate and her airway clear somewhat. She wants to push him away as he starts to press down on her breasts but she has no energy.

"What?" she manages and the boy stops abruptly, moving his hands from her chest to cradle her face in his hands.

"You scared me," the boy says and Lucy recognises him immediately as Lysander Scamander, the male Ravenclaw prefect. Lucy says nothing as she realises what has happened. Lysander has pulled her from the lake, a place where she wanted to stay forevermore.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asks, her voice faint and quiet.

"You dived into the lake and didn't come up for five minutes, so unless mermaids grow legs or something, then I believe I've just saved your life," Lysander says.

"What made you think I wanted saving?" Lucy whispers. The realisation in Lysander's eyes is immediate. He knows what she wanted to do and he knows why she had dived into the lake now. His eyes flit to her bare forearms, noticing what others had never noticed.

"Please," Lysander says, his eyes full of tears, "Please come back to the common room with me."

Lucy does nothing so Lysander scoops her up into his arms – Lucy is surprised that he can actually lift her off the ground – and carries her over to a bench underneath the old willow tree. Protected by its drooping vines, he takes off his coat and wraps it around her shivering body.

"Lucy," he says and Lucy jumps slightly, she didn't know anyone knew her name, "Please don't ever do that to anybody."

Lucy looks at the ground, knowing that he wants to talk about why she had wanted to stay at the bottom of the lake.

"I'm sorry," she whispers and before she can stop herself, she begins to cry. Lysander wraps his arms around her and draws her in close to him. She doesn't resist as he strokes her wet hair and whispered into her ear about how he understands and how he knows what she's going through. How can he? He doesn't know what it's like to be shunned every day of his life.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," Lysander says, smiling at her with his kind silvery grey eyes – the exact same shade as his mother's, Lucy notes –, "I know how you feel," he says.

Lucy shakes her head and Lysander wordlessly pulls back the sleeves of his pyjama top to show her two scars spanning the width of his wrist. She feels her heart break as she sees the sadness and the hurt in his eyes.

"Why?" she asks him, hoping that he will be able to tell her.

"My father died last summer," Lysander says simply, "He was my best friend other than my brother and I missed him. It all became too much and I wanted to join him in heaven, or wherever dead people go. If it wasn't for Lorcan, I wouldn't be here today."

Lucy opens her arms wide and moves to wrap them around Lysander. Hugging is not a sensation that she is particularly familiar with, but as soon as Lysander wraps his arms back around her, she feels completely comfortable, like this has been happening for months.

"I'm sorry, Lysander," she whispers.

"It's okay," he says, "I'm sorry about your sister… is this why you jumped in the lake?"

Lucy nods slightly, "among other things."

She doesn't want to talk about it, she really, really doesn't but Lysander had shared his story with her and now she feels obligated to tell him and somehow she feels comfortable with talking to Lysander and Lysander only, he is the only one that could possibly understand what she was going through.

"You don't have to tell me you know, Lucy," Lysander says, "I get that it's not something you want to say to people you've only just met."

Lucy nods, she bites her tongue and takes back what she was about to spill on Lysander. She doesn't want him to pity her, she doesn't need pity. She needs a friend, someone that she can rely on to help her through the tough times.

Lysander takes her silence for an answer to his question and picks her up off the seat.

"You're very strong," Lucy remarks, not knowing how he can lift her overweight body so effortlessly.

Lysander looks down at her with those same understanding eyes, "Lucy, you're as thin as a stick. You can't weigh more than thirty kilograms."

Lucy says and does nothing until they reach the first floor. When they pass the first classroom window, she sits up in Lysander's arms, wanting to look at herself in the mirror, to see if what Lysander had said was true. He places her down gently and she straightens up, the coat falling from her shoulders into a heap on the ground.

It is as if a previous illusion has been broken. All she sees when she looks at her reflection now is the shell of a girl that she once was. There were bags deeper than the lake under her eyes, her cheeks were hollow as was her stomach… she could count all of her ribs by looking at them in the mirror.

What had she done to herself? Was she really that worthless?

Her knees buckle from underneath her and she falls to the ground in what feels like slow motion. She feels Lysander catch her in his apparently not so strong arms. Her world spins around her, the vortex that has been so close to swallowing her for the past two months seems to catch her in its teeth as her world goes dark and silent once more.

When her eyes open next the silence is gone and is replaced by a soft humming noise. Lucy observes her surroundings to see that she is lying on one of the couches that resides in the Ravenclaw common room. She sees Lysander sitting at her side and feels one of her hands clasped in his. He hasn't noticed she's awake yet as he hums a tune that she doesn't recognise.

"Lysander," she asks softly, making the blonde boy jump.

"You're awake," he says, his face lighting up, "What is it?"

"When you pulled me out of the lake, why did you resuscitate me? Why not just use enervate?" she asks, voicing the question that had been nagging at her mind ever since it had registered what Lysander had done.

Lysander sighs and laces his fingers through hers, "Because from the moment I pulled you out of that lake, I saw how beautiful you were and I couldn't resist."

Lucy feels herself blush, "You're lying," Lucy says, "How could anybody think that this is beautiful?" she gestures to herself. Lysander turns her arm over and traces over the criss-cross pattern of the scars there.

"These scars are beautiful," he whispers, "They don't mar your body forever, they don't make people think any less of you at all… they show that you're a survivor, they show that you have seen harder days than they will ever see and they show that you've survived those hard days. You're a fighter Lucy, a beautiful fighter at that… don't let anybody tell you otherwise."

Before she can even react to what he has said he's bent down and captured her lips with his. He pulls away as abruptly and strokes her cheek with his thumb, smiling at her, his eyes filled with tears, "You're beautiful Lucy Weasley, both above and below the surface."

And there was a tiny part of Lucy that believed him.

AN: I hope you liked it Kaia!

Ah how I love Lucy/Lysander angst. It's something I should write more of. I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it and I would love it if you could spare me some time to leave a review. Thanks!

DFTBA
Best Wishes

~The Original Horcrux~