ethereal - draco malfoy

quidditch

A couple weeks had passed and everything calmed down. Jack and I studied together in the library every Sunday for three hours, Malfoy got injured (much to my liking), and now I was walking with Jack from the common room.

"Are you going to come watch my first game?" he asked as we walked down the slightly busy corridor. He tried out for the quidditch team and made the team; he's a chaser. I groaned lightly and tilted my head back. "Do I have to?" I asked, knowing his question wasn't a yes or no question.

"Yes." he said flatly. I scoffed and crossed my arms. "Fine. Who are you going against?" I asked as I walked around a short first year. He looked at me with an evil grin. "Gryffindor." he stated simply. My eyes widened and a smile appeared on my face. "I am suddenly very excited to watch quidditch." I said smoothly.

Jack smiled at me and then his smile faulted slightly. "Oh, Malfoy will be there, though." he said awkwardly. Over the past couple weeks, Jack grew a disliking for Malfoy. "Oh, so he's not milking his 'broken arm' any more?" I mocked with a smirk. Jack rolled his eyes but failed to hide the smile tugging at his lips.

"Oh, speaking of which, how's your arm doing?" he asked, gesturing towards my arm. The day Malfoy got scratched my the Hippogriff, I got stunk by something. No one noticed except for Jack because it happened right when Malfoy got scratched. Jack likes to joke about it and say that Malfoy's my twin since it was on the same place on the same arm at the same time.

"It's alright, the pain went away about two days after I was stung." I said with a small smile. Jack looked around at the empty corridor and gestured to my arm. "May I?" he asked. I gave him a confused look before realizing that he was asking to touch my arm.

"I- uh. Um-" I stammered. Jack laughed softly and turned to me. "It's alright, calm down. I won't touch your arm. Can I ask you something though?" he asked. I reluctantly nodded my head.

"Why don't you like being touched?" he asked. "Can you explain it please?" he added.

I sighed and closed my eyes to calm myself down. "Well, as you know, my mother is abusive. She's left multiple scars on me from her beatings. She put me in therapy over the summer to help with certain things; like making sure physical contact doesn't make me uncomfortable and my anger issues. Those are the two main things I work on. Skin to skin contact just isn't comfortable for me." I explained.

That's technically only half a lie. It goes way deeper than just abuse and me being uncomfortable, but that's the story I told all my close friends when they asked. I would never tell anyone the whole story. Ever.

Jack sat there for a moment and I could practically hear the gears in his head turning. Finally, he spoke up. "What do you do in therapy? For the skin to skin contact?" he asked curiously.

"My therapist has a daughter that's 15 and goes to Beauxbatons. She wants to be a therapist when she gets older, like her mother, so her mother brings her in to help me. She usually just tries to get me to brush my hand up against hers or rub her palm with the pad of my index finger. I only get to see her over the summer though." I explained again.

Jack nodded and stayed silent for a few seconds before speaking again. "Is your father abusive too?" he asked bluntly. I shook my head rapidly. "No, no. Of course not." I replied.

"So he lets your mother abuse you?" he queried. I sighed and shook my head. "It's more than that. He's in love with her, so he doesn't want to do anything about it. It's fucked, really. But I know that if he could, he would leave her." I explained simply.

It didn't make me upset talking to someone about these things. Daphne, Astoria, Blaise and Theo all knew this already. They all asked the same questions that Jack asked.