PRETENDING TO LIVE~ {The Lestrange Daughter #2}

𝟖𝟎. Dear

Valentine let her head fall back against the porcelain rim of the bathtub and sighed. She could hear her friends in her bedroom, talking amongst themselves. Blaze and Beckett seemed to be arguing and Leah seemed to be egging them on, but Valentine could barely focus on it.

Everything hurt. Every muscle and inch of skin ached and twitched as the searing hot water forced her body to relax. The steam rising from the water made her sweat, hair plastering itself to the back of her neck.

The scrapes and rope burn all seemed to be gone and the cut on her forehead was quickly fading away to nothing, but that didn't take away the pain or the deep bruising she knew hadn't even shown up yet.

She grimaced, remembering the havoc that came once her arms and knees and had started turning blue and purple. She damned her propensity for easy bruising. She'd looked like a banana someone had kicked down the stairs. And those were only the first to appear. She knew by tomorrow she'd be black and blue all over again. 

In the grand scheme of things that was the least of her worries. Keeping the entirety of her scarred back from view had been a war in of itself. She could imagine Narcissa's head exploding at the sight. Leah would probably cry. Blaze would rage, always the first to get mad. Liam would just try and keep calm while also jumping down her throat about what had happened. And she would be lucky if Draco didn't jump off a building.

Fuck. That.

Narcissa, Rose and Samantha had the keen, narrowed eyes of mothers and it was strange to be looked after by someone other than Snape. The mothers weren't the easily distracted, air-headed Leah. Valentine had been dressing and undressing in the same room as her for over a year now and Leah had never noticed the fact that her back had been used as a note pad.

A vague thought passed through her mind that she never would have managed if they'd still had three people to a room.

"Fight me, fool!" She heard Beckett proclaim.

"Fight someone else!" Blaze shot back.

"But I want to fight you!"

"The hell? What did I do now?"

"Nothing. I'm just pumped as hell for some reason."

"Yeah, that would be because this is the first time you haven't been completely wasted in the last two and a half weeks," Liam added offhandedly.

Valentine sank deeper into the water, letting it cover her mouth, wondering why everyone crazy enough to be her friend had to be so loud. 

She had come so close to winning and that stung more than her skin. Rabastan was fast and strong. She knew if she hadn't injured him so early on, forcing him to cast with his non-dominant hand, that she wouldn't have been the one standing in the end. 

Her mind strayed to the words Rabastan had hissed in her ear.

Now, I'm going to hurt you just a little bit. But don't worry. I know you can handle it.

What was it that he was going to do? Curio perhaps. That certainly would have...sucked. It would have sucked real fucking hard.

Valentine reached up a hand and touched her head tenderly.

My head must be made out of freaking steel. How did I not get a concussion? 

She dropped her arm back into the water and glared down at a small bruise already forming lightly on the inside of her forearm. She wondered if Snape was going to be around anytime soon. If they got a moment alone she could make him take care of it as he always did.