autumn | severus snape

seven | letters

When Ophelia returned home sometime in the early morning, she'd had time to sober up and felt very embarrassed of her night visit to Professor Snape. She locked herself in her room and collapsed onto the floor, biting the ends of the sleeves on her shirt in frustration.

The night kept replaying in her mind, her attacker probably wasn't sober either, but it didn't make a difference to her. Knowing that he'd do it again to someone else and someone else after that, was like a knife being pressed into her head. She tried so hard to focus, but it was like running through water, her head just didn't work.

She needed a distraction, searching desperately through her room, trying to find something to bring her back to reality. And then she froze, she had definitely found something. Her hands shook as she picked it up from her bed, where it lay so innocently.

"Ophelia,

I'm not really sure why I'm writing this letter. I think the main reason is that I need closure. I need to know why you left me. I understand that you were hurting, I understand that you had to move. I know how helplessly you begged God to bring Peter back to you. But why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you give me a chance to be there for you?

We could have done the long distance thing, we would have survived it. And even if we didn't, you know I would have come with you. You know I would have dropped everything, I would have thrown away my entire life just to be with you.

What I have realized is that you never loved me, not like I loved you. And realizing that late, cost me a lot. You are just an ordinary girl who I thought was going to be someone special., but you were destined to break my heart. I am just a number on your list.

Maybe one day you will feel guilt for what you did, but until then, consider me a stranger, one more victim of your actions."

Tears were streaming down her face, the letter wasn't signed but she knew who it was from. She had thought Vincent was the love of her life, they had been friends since they were ten years old. On her fifteenth birthday, he had begged her to marry him. She had, of course, turned him down, but when he asked again her next birthday, she promised him they would get married on the day she turned eighteen. But her brother's death made her break that promise.

Ophelia hadn't told Vincent about her move to England, or any of her friends, for that matter. Her friends were also Peter's friends, and she couldn't look any of them in the eyes without the guilt of what she'd done consuming her. Daniel was the only one who got a goodbye, because he was the only one who knew, he was the only one who could understand.

Ophelia thought about the day she met Vincent. She had tackled him for stealing her bike. They went crashing to the ground, almost got run down by a garbage truck. If she thinks about it she can still smell the cloud of concrete gas and the burning of the tires. She had him pinned to the ground. In his defence, it looked just like his bike, same brand, but he had a bell on the handlebars.

Vincent was always the smart one, the one who outshone them all. In any room he was in he'd be the brightest light, the one everyone turned to admire. He walked as if he knew he was a god. When she closed her eyes she could still see his smile, the big, crooked one that always seemed to be reserved just for her, like she was something special.

Getting married had seemed like such a great idea at the time, back when they were just two spotty teens throwing aeroplanes at the back of class.

Her eyes stung as the sun went up outside her window, she was in a half dream state. When Ophelia was a very small child, she wasn't allowed to care about things, so she believed that she didn't care about anything. But she did care, she cared about Peter, she cared about Vincent, she cared about her parents and Ana, and most importantly, even if she didn't know it at the time, she cared about herself.