The Keepers' Evil: The Shattered Star

He left her alone

Nott played dirty, extremely dirty, and now it was going to kill one of the only people he truly cared about. Nott had allowed his wand to meet Hugo, the incantation brushed under his breath to be mistaken for just the rain tinselled with raindrops. But Gabriel had seen, he had heard Josie's name somewhere in the concoction of darkness that Nott used as a game, and he had tried to reach Hugo before her name had cast its own curse over his protectiveness, but he had been all too late.

Gabriel dove until his broom was entirely vertical, the speed of the wind lashing his cheeks until he was sure there was blood, until his fingers could yank the front of Hugo's robes. His fists tugged Hugo's unconscious weight, his body snapping and his bones cracking against the ground with the reduced impact he received until the pressure and the excruciating split in his body began to wake him. Gabriel heard the wood of his broom crackle as he took the pressure for them both, as he tumbled until he had absorbed the shock and they both lay broken on the ground.

"Hugo, Hugo!" Josephine slid to the ground beside Hugo as he spluttered on the blood that trickled from his lips, his ordinarily mellow brown pupils bloodshot and his body beginning to bruise a violent black. Celeste should've slumped to Hugo's side, she had the tools to help him, she was sure only she did, yet she could see Gabriel's body viciously heave beside him as he began to shake himself upright.

She crouched slowly beside him, unsure if her place was supposed to be here, if she had a place beside him at all. She craved a friendship, something to connect the disconnected. She hadn't yet met another soul that could see hers without a word being said, and she wasn't sure if Gabriel's could, but she wanted to believe that the world had sent her a friend. 

"Are you okay?" She resisted to place a hand on him, yet the desire to care placed it on his shoulder. His eyes found hers beside him, and they were no longer filled with the frustration that he had felt with her. Gabriel's insides felt tangled, electrified with the shock he had taken from the floor, but the surprise of her soft touch against him seemed to calm a hidden piece of his mind.

He noticed how she looked riddled with concern and he felt a guilt creep through his system. He had wanted to unlock her only if to tell her that someone out there knew what it was like to be like her, but now he cared too deeply and it was damaging her. Nobody had looked at him the way she had, nobody had worried for him, and that had been for a good enough reason- The Selwyn's didn't care for others, and others didn't care for them.

"I'm fine, Malfoy, really." She seemed to analyse him, her frown purposeful, and he let her. The tip of her wand dug across his neck, anywhere that the ground had somewhat touched, her hand pressing too firmly seemingly exactly where he was hurt. She mumbled and whispered delicate incantations to partner her wand's gold pulsed glow and her fingers dragged over his skin. He winced and seethed through his teeth as her hand found his ribcage, the bones visibly shattered beneath her hand, and her eyes locked firmly to his with the unwritten, unnecessary, unspoken, apologies.

"You didn't look fine." They were learning that it was okay to care. Perhaps for each other, perhaps for the goodness they wished to care for, but she didn't let his eyes go and he hadn't realised that the tiny whisper of repeated words could hold such a force over him. Gabriel wanted to laugh, and maybe he would've had he not owed her for mending what ailed him.

Gabriel's instinct was to thank her profusely, to spill every word of gratitude into her psyche, but he frowned deeply instead. Celeste had mended hundreds of snaps and fragments of carved bone and caved muscle as easily as a levitating charm. From what he knew of her, she was no healer and had not forged the path to become one either. His frown was telling of his thoughts, ones that she couldn't allow him to enquire into. The simple shake of her head as her fingers let him go silenced him, but nothing could quiet his running mind.